An evisceration in name only as Boris fails to go the full Geoffrey

He’d planned it with painstaking care: right down to the smallest detail. Twenty-eight years before him, in front of a dumbstruck Commons, Sir Geoffrey Howe had made a resignation statement so damaging that it precipitated the fall of Margaret Thatcher. Yesterday, Boris Johnson strode in to make his own resignation statement – and plumped himself in the exact same seat Sir Geoffrey had chosen. Middle Conservative bench, two feet from the aisle. Coincidence? Not a chance. The House looked on breathlessly. This was going to be a belter.

Of course, we knew that Mr Johnson’s statement would differ from Sir Geoffrey’s. Sir Geoffrey used his to complain that Mrs Thatcher had been too hard on Brussels. It seemed unlikely that Mr Johnson would say the same of Theresa May.

Surrounding the former foreign secretary was a gang of supportive Brexiteers – among them David Davis (the former Brexit secretary), Steve Baker (a former Brexit minister) and Jacob Rees-mogg. Mrs May, however, was absent. Mercifully for her, she had an excuse: a scheduled appearance before a Commons committee.

Mr Johnson rose. The House fell silent. After thanking those he’d worked with at the Foreign Office, he praised Mrs May for her “courage and resilience”, and for the “great clarity” of her initial Brexit “vision”. MPS waited for the “but”. It swiftly came. What an evisceration.

It was neither gleeful nor enraged, but sober, solemn, and sad. Since Mrs May’s Brexit speech at Lancaster House, said Mr Johnson, “it is as though a fog of self-doubt has descended”. It had been “18 months of stealthy retreat”. In that time, “we dithered. We burned through negotiating capital. We agreed to hand over a £40billion exit fee.”

He said “we”. But of course he meant “she”.

“We,” he went on, “are now claiming that we must accept every jot and tittle of [EU regulation].” Not a commonly heard phrase, “jot and tittle”. But it just so happens to be a favourite of Mrs May’s.

The charge sheet grew more damning by the minute. The Prime Minister’s plan from Chequers, said Mr Johnson, would leave Britain in a “miserable permanent limbo” – and

represent “a democratic disaster”. It was, in short, “Brexit in name only”.

The House stood by. It was clear where the speech was heading. “We need to take one decision now, before all others,” declared Mr Johnson, grimly – and then paused. MPS awaited the guillotine’s fall. It didn’t come.

“And that is,” resumed Mr Johnson, “to believe in this country…. If the Prime Minister can fix that vision once again before us, I believe she can deliver a great Brexit….”

Well, well. Rather than a fatal blow, he’d chosen to deliver a warning. A dark and unmistakable warning.

“Is that it?” shouted Labour MPS. To which the answer, Mrs May can be sure, is: No. No, it most certainly isn’t.