DAN HODGES: The smart move is for the PM to RESIGN and fight election

DAN HODGES: The smart move now is for Boris Johnson to RESIGN then fight the battle of his life

Everyone’s making the same mistake they made in the referendum,’ the Downing Street official said defiantly. 

‘In Westminster people are saying it’s all a disaster. But out in the country people are backing Boris. They know what he’s trying to do, and they’re behind him.’

They better had be. Because in the space of just seven days the Prime Minister’s carefully crafted strategy for taming parliament, exiting the European Union and winning a snap General Election has fallen apart.

If Boris was to step down prior to fighting a new Election, it would neutralise the main criticism against him – that he has only sought power for his own aggrandisement. The PM is pictured visiting a farm near Aberdeen in Scotland on Friday

It was a master plan that began to unravel even before it was unveiled. Primarily because it was never supposed to be unveiled at all. 

‘The prorogation wasn’t meant to be revealed till the last possible moment,’ a minister explained to me. ‘That way the House wouldn’t have had time to react.’

Instead the plan leaked, MPs mobilised, and rather than a neutered Commons, Boris was confronted with a pack of enraged Remainers baying for his blood.

Furious at this act of defiance, the Prime Minister and his senior adviser Dominic Cummings decided to respond by setting a trap.

If MPs attempted to bind his hands, and force him to go begging to Brussels for a new extension, then he would appeal over their heads to the British people. Back me, or I’ll get the voters to sack you, he warned.

The first thing he is going to have to do is lock Dom Cummings (above) in a box and throw away the key. Or, more importantly, lock him in the campaign headquarters of the Election campaign that is a matter of months away

Then he looked on stunned as they resolutely refused to take the bait. ‘Boris and Cummings never thought for a moment Corbyn wouldn’t back an Election after spending every day for the past two years calling for one,’ another Minister explained. 

‘And you have to understand, calling an Election is very seductive for a PM. It’s the ultimate example of power. It never occurred to Boris he wouldn’t be able to use it.’

It was a miscalculation that prompted a third, catastrophic blunder. In a desperate attempt to reassert his authority, Boris ordered the removal of the whip from 21 Tory MPs, at a stroke slashing his nominal majority from 1, to minus 41.

And so a strategy that had sought to wrest control from the House of Commons and force through Brexit by the end of next month, ended with Parliament in total control, the October 31 deadline dead and Ken Clarke as the de facto Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. 

Despite all this, some of the forced optimism from the Downing Street spokesman has merit.

Boris needs to swallow hard, and offer the 21 deselected rebels an opportunity for redemption. Expulsions may seem stirringly decisive after the indecision and drift of the May years

Having being accused of launching a coup, Johnson is this morning the only senior politician offering the British people the immediate opportunity to end their Brexit purgatory. 

He is also the only one clearly pledging to respect and implement the result of the referendum. Many important political fundamentals remain in his favour.

But none of that will matter if he has another week like the last one. As one dejected Tory MP said: ‘Boris has used up all his political capital in his first seven days.’ And unless he takes urgent action, his party and his country are finished.

The first thing he is going to have to do is lock Dom Cummings in a box and throw away the key. Or, more importantly, lock him in the campaign headquarters of the Election campaign that is a matter of months away.

Conservative Cabinet ministers, MPs and senior advisers are now united in their belief that Cummings is out of control. 

As one Minister said: ‘Cummings is talented, but he’s like the Bond villain who wants everyone to know how brilliant he is. So he ties them up, boasts about his evil plan, then Bond escapes and wrecks it.’

A confidence motion can now be passed by Boris’s enemies at a moment of their choosing. Meanwhile, he cannot force an Election. He cannot pass any legislation. He can’t do anything except wait for the Remainer sword to fall

I’m told that last week he overruled Boris Johnson in three important areas – an agreement the Prime Minister had reached with former minister Greg Clark over finding compromise wording the rebels could support before the crucial Brexit vote; a commitment to sharing with Cabinet the legal advice on prorogation, and a pledge to explore a way for bringing dismissed MPs back into the party.

Cummings was recruited by Johnson with the sole objective of driving through Brexit by October 31. 

He has failed in that task, and now needs to be removed from the heart of Government and placed in a position where he can use his campaigning skills exclusively to try and secure the Tory majority that will save Brexit.

Then Boris needs to swallow hard, and offer the 21 deselected rebels an opportunity for redemption. Expulsions may seem stirringly decisive after the indecision and drift of the May years. 

But the most important skill in politics is being able to count. And by defenestrating his own working majority, the Prime Minister no longer has the parliamentary numbers to achieve anything except become a footnote in history.

At a minimum, he must try to find a way of splitting the pro-Remain alliance that is being constructed around the wreckage of his prorogation strategy. 

Senior Labour MPs now believe Jeremy Corbyn is close to accepting the insertion of a Commons grandee as interim prime minister. 

And if he does, there is nothing to stop Brexit’s opponents mounting a coup of their own, stringing out the time to a new election, and permanently and irrevocably sabotaging the referendum result. And then Boris must do one final thing. Resign.

His first premiership is already over. Having ceded power to his opponents in Parliament, there is no way of recapturing it this side of an Election.

And there is no route to that Election until the disparate elements of the Remain faction have tried, and failed, to form their own government.

A confidence motion can now be passed by Boris’s enemies at a moment of their choosing. Meanwhile, he cannot force an Election. He cannot pass any legislation. He can’t do anything except wait for the Remainer sword to fall.

So he has a choice. Sit in office – the Buddha of Downing Street – with no power or purpose. Or resign, and prepare himself for the battle of his life.

If Boris was to step down prior to fighting a new Election, it would neutralise the main criticism against him – that he has only sought power for his own aggrandisement. 

It would illustrate he was indeed prepared to embrace political mortality, rather than go cap in hand to Brussels. 

And it would instantly reverse the political dynamic – it would be his opponents, rather than the Prime Minister, left stewing in their own juice.

The British people may yet rally to Boris’s side. But before they do, he will have to demonstrate strategic cunning, tactical clarity and political courage. All the qualities, in fact, that have deserted him over this last week from hell.

Purged Tories put PM in the dock

Boris Johnson is likely to be launching his Election campaign in the Old Bailey. 

Former Tory MPs, axed in the wake of last week’s purge, are preparing to sue the Prime Minister for breaching Conservative Party rules.

‘MPs have a right of appeal,’ a senior backbencher explained to me. ‘But Johnson’s team have already started deselections. So we’re going to see them in court.’

On Thursday, Tory Party chairman James Cleverly messaged MPs via their WhatsApp group and said no de-selections would commence until they had been formally authorised by Conservative HQ. 

But I’m told senior No 10 aide Danny Kruger had already begun telephoning constituency party chairmen, instructing them to begin the search for new candidates. 

‘Kruger told them under no circumstances would their current MPs be allowed to stand,’ an MP tells me. It’s going to get ugly.

Boris Johnson is likely to be launching his Election campaign in the Old Bailey, pictured above. Former Tory MPs, axed in the wake of last week’s purge, are preparing to sue the Prime Minister for breaching Conservative Party rules

Labour takes aim at the DUP

Jeremy Corbyn is plotting to prevent Boris Johnson forming another alliance with the DUP in the event of a hung-parliament.

The Labour leader’s allies in the militant Unite trade union are planning to run ‘workers’ candidates’ against Deputy Leader Nigel Dodds and Gavin Robinson in two Belfast constituencies.

‘In the Election, every seat is going to count,’ a Labour insider tells me. ‘And if they can knock out some of the DUP MPs it could tip Jeremy over the edge and into Downing Street.’ No surrender there, Mr Dodds.

Westminster Whisper

Opposition MPs are confident they will block this week’s bid by Boris Johnson to force an Election. But Downing Street is still accelerating preparations for a snap poll.

I understand No 10 policy chief Munira Mirza has already begun work on the new Election manifesto, and has been phoning Ministers and senior backbenchers asking for ideas. After the week Boris has had, they’d better be good ones.

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