The smile that said Johnson was sitting on a special secret

Boris Johnson was smiling. But it was a funny sort of smile. It wasn’t wide and triumphant, a film-star flash of Oscar-night delight. It was small and subtle, a flickering grin, impish and playful, a twinkle of barely suppressed mischief. The smile of someone who knows a secret – an amusing secret. Someone who knows something his enemies don’t.

The PM had come to Brussels to shake hands on the new Brexit deal. Now he and Jean-claude Juncker were standing side by side, making statements. After all those weeks of enmity from afar, the two suddenly seemed tremendously matey. Their mood was one of blokeish back-slapping, job’s a good ’un, fancy a pint, don’t mind if I do. And Mr Johnson’s lips kept wriggling into that curious little grin.

What was it, that seemed to amuse him so much? Was he remembering all those times his critics scoffed, and told him the EU would never reopen the Withdrawal Agreement, that he was doomed to fail? Certainly he seemed proud of what had been achieved: the deal, he said, was “a very good deal”, “an excellent deal”, “a real Brexit”.

But he didn’t just look pleased – he looked tickled. Perhaps what tickled him was a certain line by Mr Juncker.

“We have a deal,” he began. “And this deal means that there is no need for any kind of prolongation…”

Mr Johnson’s opponents must have gnawed their knuckles in alarm. “No need for any kind of prolongation.”

What did Mr Juncker mean? Was he merely expressing his satisfaction with the deal? Or was it a threat? A threat to anti-brexit MPS, warning them that, if they didn’t support the deal, a scornful EU would dismiss their pleas for more time, and they would be plunged instantly into their greatest nightmare: a no deal? And worse than that – the blame for it, and all its consequences, would be laid entirely at their door.

Because they’d had the chance to avert no deal – and they’d rejected it.

What a thought. What a dilemma. What a risk. Ahead of tomorrow’s vote, the PM’S opponents must now wrestle with two terrifying questions. First: did Mr Juncker mean that? And second: did he really mean it?

One British politician certainly thought so – and was utterly outraged. But he wasn’t a Remainer. He was, of all people, Nigel Farage.

What Mr Juncker had said, fumed the leader of the Brexit Party, was “appalling”. By denying Britain an extension, this “unelected bureaucrat” would be “overriding the Benn Act”.

Honestly. How dare the EU refuse to let us stay in. We voted to Remain.

Didn’t we?