Where Boris Johnson went wrong

After his chastening defeat in the Supreme Court, Johnson may think twice about trying to defy the law a second time by simply refusing to abide by the Benn Act, said Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform think tank.

“Some people seem to think he’d rather not [sign the letter to the EU requesting an extension] and that he won’t break the law, he’ll just resign. If he resigns then he will let somebody else do it,” he said.

The logic of such a move would be to make way for a caretaker government that would request the Brexit delay and then call an election (Corbyn has stated his willingness to do exactly this.) Johnson, having maintained his Brexit purity, could then lead the Tories into that election having, to some extent, blunted the impact of the Brexit Party on the Conservative vote.

“The risk of that for Boris is a kind of Salvini situation,” Grant said, referring to the Italian League party leader who pulled the plug on his country’s coalition government last month in the hope of winning a majority in a subsequent election, but instead found himself frozen out of power.

“[Johnson could] resign thinking there will be an election in a few weeks’ time and you can get back in by winning the election,” he said. “But then maybe the caretaker government goes on being a caretaker government for a very long time and you’re excluded from power and there isn’t any election.”