Johnson has lost the case for a no-deal Brexit. The only sensible option now is for a Final Say

Editorial: The logical step left, having ruled out a new Brexit policy, having ruled out no deal and having (shortly) ruled out a fresh general election, is for the issue to be put back the people

‘Johnson is playing poker ... his strategy is to bluff’ (AFP)

So short into its span, the Johnson government has the whiff of decay about it. Before he has even faced the House of Commons for a single formal session of Prime Minister’s Questions, it is apparent that on the key, central issue of Brexit, Boris Johnson does not carry the confidence or the authority of the House of Commons. Indeed, before his statement to parliament on the G7 summit, Mr Johnson suffered the humiliation of watching one member on his own benches, Philip Lee, cross the floor of the house to join the Liberal Democrats.

Symbolically, then, the government has lost its effective working majority – yet was already in a distinct minority without the support of the Democratic Unionist Party. In terms of substance, the impression is of a prime minister who is in office but not in power. He is big on blond bluster but hasn’t much of an argument to back it up. He looks and sounds shaky. He is.

No-deal Brexit is off the table, and it took the Commons only a matter of hours to make that plain on its first day back after the (overly long) summer recess. At the very first opportunity presented to it, a remarkable alliance of opposition parties and government backbenchers united to block this catastrophic outcome, entirely consistent with their positions in the past, and entirely in the national interest.

It is true that the original EU withdrawal legislation was carried by huge majorities but, like the 2016 referendum itself, there was no mandate for a no-deal Brexit. There never was, and the Commons has merely reiterated its stance. Mr Johnson’s decision to pack his administration with hardliners and members of the European Research Group left more sensible Tories, including former ministers and many who have voted for Brexit many times, free to follow their consciences and protect the nation from the activities of what amounts to a cult running Downing Street.

With the talk of deselections, both by the leader of the party and local associations, as well as so many long-standing MPs opting to defect or stand down, the atmosphere in the Conservative Party has never been more poisonous. The party is split, and is dying. It may well have a lead over the Labour Party, but that says more about the state of the opposition. At around a third of the vote in the opinion polls, the Conservatives are close to the level of support they enjoyed in the disastrous general election of 1997 – itself the worst showing since 1832. This is the logical conclusion of the civil war in the party that has raged on and off for about three decades. Europe has wrecked the leaderships, to a great or lesser extent, of Margaret Thatcher, John Major, William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith, David Cameron, Theresa May and, now, even Boris Johnson. In testing Brexit to destruction, the process is, all too predictably, destroying the Johnson government.

There is no way out for Mr Johnson. Showing admirable skill, restraint and statesmanship, Mr Corbyn seems likely to deny Mr Johnson being able to hold a general election on his own terms. Mr Corbyn is right to ensure a stake has been driven through the heart of no-deal Brexit, this most accursed and undead of political zombies, before even contemplating a new general election or, more appositely, a Final Say referendum.

Because what has also been stark and obvious for many months is that while there is a majority in parliament against no-deal Brexit, there is as yet no settled Commons majority for an alternative solution to Brexit. The government may be paralysed but the Commons is also in deadlock, despite the admirable decisiveness with which it has dealt with Mr Johnson’s approach.

The only logical step left – having ruled out a new Brexit policy, having ruled out no deal and having (shortly) ruled out a fresh general election – is for the issue to be put back to the people. The issue will be binary: no deal or no Brexit. Mr Johnson, to recycle an old phrase, should know there is no alternative. He needs to get on with it: do or die, Boris.