There’s one politician determined to expose Boris Johnson who he can’t just sack – Nicola Sturgeon

Coronavirus has left Johnson looking like the prime minister of England – he has to prevent this disastrous label becoming his political epitaph

The usual instinct among Boris Johnson’s team on how to handle his enemies is to take them out. No wonder Johnson’s favourite film scene is “the multiple retribution killings at the end of The Godfather”.

As chair of the Commons culture select committee, Tory MP and Remainer Damian Collins exposed Russian interference in the 2016 EU referendum. The committee’s 2019 report found 261 anti-EU articles, mainly by the Kremlin-owned RT television network and Sputnik news agency. Their social reach was 134 million potential impressions, compared to 33 million and 11 million for content shared from the Vote Leave website and Nigel Farage’s Leave.EU respectively. A comparable paid social media campaign would have cost up to £4m.

The report should have sparked the proper inquiry now demanded by parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC). Instead, Collins lost his place on his committee when MPs chose its members after December’s election. His successor as chair is Julian Knight, a born again Brexiteer who favours a tougher line than Collins against the BBC.

One reason why the ISC report was delayed for nine months was that a Vote Leave-dominated Downing Street machine did not want to hand a pre-election platform to Dominic Grieve, who chaired the inquiry, even though he is not trying to reopen the 2016 referendum. A Remainer, Grieve was among 21 who lost the Tory whip for frustrating Johnson on Brexit, and then lost his Beaconsfield seat when he ran as an independent.

However, Johnson has one opponent he cannot remove and is struggling to undermine. He will soon head to Scotland for the first time since the election to launch a fightback against Nicola Sturgeon. Despite the SNP’s poor record on health and education in 13 years in power, she has skilfully used the coronavirus crisis to outmanoeuvre Johnson’s government, to the irritation and frustration of No 10.

The indefatigable Sturgeon has used her daily press conferences to pre-empt decisions she knew would soon be announced in London because the three devolved administrations had been consulted. She deployed her powers, notably on health, to adopt a slightly more cautious approach than Johnson, allowing her to keep clearer messages like “stay at home” and play to the public’s natural caution. Who couldn’t like her goal of eliminating the virus, rather than suppressing it?

In fact, her government’s record on coronavirus is not much better than Johnson’s; the proportion of deaths in care homes is higher in Scotland. But Sturgeon’s personal ratings have soared, while Johnson’s have plummeted. For the first time, opinion polls show a consistent majority for independence. The most recent suggest 54 per cent of Scots would vote to break away, and 46 per cent to stay in the UK.

The maxim about the Tory party having only two states – complacency or panic – rings true on Scotland. Complacency has turned to panic. On Tuesday, the cabinet was briefed on the dire polls in a political session without civil servants. Johnson urged his ministers to visit Scotland, do more Scottish media interviews and remind Scots they have benefited from the government’s multi-billion pound measures on coronavirus, including the protection of 900,000 jobs north of the border.

But ministers know it will be very difficult to prevent the SNP winning a majority at next May’s Scottish Parliament elections – and therefore a mandate for a second referendum. The Tories’ recovery in Scotland under the much missed Ruth Davidson was based on defending the Union. So running on that platform might mean sleepwalking into a trap. On the other hand, fighting mainly on the SNP’s record would not prevent Sturgeon claiming her mandate.

Johnson’s aides tell me he will not agree to another independence referendum, and the UK government’s approval is needed. “Forget it. It’s just never going to happen,” one says. “They had their ‘once in a generation’ referendum in 2014.”

Yet ministers know that denying another vote will probably make the independence tide even stronger. They also know that Sturgeon has the nuclear option of calling an advisory referendum, which would not be binding but might force Johnson’s hand into allowing a real one.

The inconvenient truth for Johnson is that the real prospect of the UK’s breakup is not only due to the pandemic. The platform for the SNP’s second chance was provided by the EU referendum, which demolished claims in the 2014 Scottish referendum that staying in the UK would keep Scotland in the EU. Scotland voted by 62 per cent to 38 per cent to remain. Like the ISC’s report on Russia, this is too close to home for Johnson.

Coronavirus has left him looking like the prime minister of England. To prevent this disastrous label becoming his political epitaph, Johnson might need to swallow a new constitutional settlement with more powers for the devolved administrations, and which finally tackles the unresolved English question. But it would be very difficult to square that with the command and control instincts of his team.