With a no-deal Brexit now unlikely, Jeremy Corbyn is running out of excuses – we’re heading for an election

Pressing ahead with his now ‘paused’ bill would be the statesmanlike thing to do, but Boris Johnson seems to be increasingly tempted by the ballot box

“Get Brexit done” or “real change”. I’m told this would be the choice that the Conservative and Labour parties respectively offer the country if there is a pre-Christmas general election. The slogans are decided and preparations are being stepped up.

That “get Brexit done” is a far more powerful pitch than “real change” explains why Boris Johnson is keen on a snap election after his Brexit strategy was derailed by last night’s Commons decision to reject his rushed timetable for passing the EU (Withdrawal) Bill.

“Real change” tells us that Labour doesn’t want a “Brexit election”, and would try to repeat its brilliant 2017 trick by shifting the focus to the effects of a decade of Tory austerity. But with a no-deal Brexit about to be taken off the table, Jeremy Corbyn is running out of excuses to avoid an early poll.

Eurosceptics branded as “cynical” the Labour MPs who backed the bill on its second reading but then opposed the timetable motion. Yet it is Johnson who is acting cynically as he tries to engineer an election. He deserved last night’s defeat after not providing enough time for MPs to scrutinise his deal; he had offered MPs a measly and inadequate three days of debate. Nikki da Costa, the prime minister’s director of legislative affairs, proposed 13 days for the bill in the Commons and a total of 37 days including time to pass through the Lords when she did the same job for Theresa May.

Offering five more days now, as Labour reasonably demands, would almost certainly secure the passage of a timetable motion. Will Johnson do it? Or will he instead use his latest Commons setback as an excuse to call an election, grabbing his best chance to win an overall majority and avoid limping on at the head of a zombie government?

Some ministers believe Johnson has a platform to get his deal approved after last night’s impressive 30-vote margin on second reading. They think he would reap an eventual reward for “getting Brexit done” in a spring election. They suspect a short delay beyond 31 October would not damage Johnson any further: Nigel Farage would stamp his feet, but the latest opinion polls show the Tories 13-15 points ahead, as Johnson hoovers up the Leave vote.

Pressing ahead with his now “paused” bill would be the statesmanlike thing for Johnson to do, but the signs are that he is increasingly tempted by an election. Some aides think a pre-Brexit election, with his ready-made deal the centrepiece, would allow him to appeal to Labour Leave voters in the north and midlands, without losing moderate Tory supporters in the south who might have been repelled if he had sought a mandate for no deal. They hope the Remain supporters would be split between opposition parties, allowing the Tories to secure a majority even if they won only about 35 per cent of the vote.

True to form, Johnson will blame everyone else for missing his rash 31 October “do or die” Brexit deadline. I expect the EU27 to offer a “flextension”, a maximum extension of three months that could end earlier, as soon as parliament approved the bill. That would protect the EU from charges of interfering in UK politics, because a delay until January was specified by the Benn Act, which forced Johnson to grudgingly seek an extension.

It might suit Johnson to misrepresent such an offer as a minimum three month extension, reject it and propose an election. He said he would not negotiate an extension but is probably doing just that today in a series of telephone calls to EU leaders. He would prefer them to offer a very short extension of a few weeks, which might persuade him to try again to get the bill through.

If Johnson demands an election, Corbyn would have a dilemma. His own instincts have always been, as one loyalist put it, to “have the confidence to go for it”. He was energised by the 2017 campaign; Labour started 20 points behind and narrowed the gap to just two points. Yet some shadow cabinet ministers worry that Labour could repeat such a performance in a pre-Brexit election, and so back a “referendum first” stance.

Many Labour backbenchers fear the party would fall between two stools with an election pitch of a Final Say referendum (with a choice between a soft Brexit and Remain) that could alienate Leave and Remain voters alike. In contrast, a pre-Brexit election would be better for the Liberal Democrats who, like the Tories, would benefit from having a clear policy on Brexit – in the Lib Dems’ case, scrapping it altogether. (What would the Lib Dems say in a post-Brexit election?)

A Final Say would be a much cleaner and fairer way to resolve Brexit than a general election in which some people would vote on other issues. There is no longer any argument about the referendum question now that the prime minister, against the odds, has secured a deal: it would be a straight choice between that deal and Remain.

True, Brenda from Bristol would not welcome a referendum. But she wouldn’t want an election either, especially if it ended in a hung parliament – still a possibility if enough Remainers voted tactically. That would mean the only way to resolve Brexit would be a referendum. And Brenda would be left feeling even angrier.