Flummoxed and flat-footed, Remain United are getting trounced out there

‘ As Mike Tyson pointed out, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth, but it seems increasing unlikely MPs opposed to a no-deal Brexit can lay a glove on the Prime Minister

As Boris Johnson revealed his plan to suspend parliament and reduce the time available for MPs to halt a no-deal Brexit last week, one football fan close to the cabinet delivered his own running commentary.

“We are into the final 10 minutes and we are holding the ball by the corner flag,” he breathlessly told Buzzfeed.

Well, yes, but that suggests the team ranged against the Prime Minister is a professional, effective opposition. As if Remain United are pressing and pushing, jostling their opponents, desperately trying to win the ball back as the clock winds down to the final whistle. That is not what fans in the stands are seeing.

Despite having three years to identify their most skilful players, assemble their best team and plot the most effective tactics, it is a team with no manager and no stars, a side with no clue. Jo Swinson won’t pass to Jeremy Corbyn who has wandered off to chat to spectators. Some of the players are planning, probably pointless, legal challenges, others are plotting, probably meaningless, procedural manoeuvres in the Commons. It is, frankly, a shambles.

Meanwhile, Boris Johnson and his de facto chief of staff Dominic Cummings drive on. If anyone remained in any doubt, the events of last week should dispel once and for all the notion that Mr Johnson is a little ramshackle, a buffoonish Bertie Wooster who busked his way to the top with no real idea what to do when he got there.

He is not making this up as he ambles along. He is a man with a plan but, to move from the pitch to the ring, everyone, as Mike Tyson pointed out, “has a plan until they get punched in the mouth”. Only a fool would predict how events might unfold over the next two months but it seems increasingly unlikely that MPs attempting to stop Britain leaving the EU without agreement are capable of laying a glove on Mr Johnson.

It really shouldn’t have been such a surprise but the concerted, decisive actions being taken in Downing Street appear to have completely flummoxed opponents, who seem more divided and flat-footed by the day.

The suggestion from Gordon Brown, that EU leaders might unilaterally remove the Halloween deadline and simply stop the clock, end the dramatic countdown, and remove the need for Mr Johnson’s do-or-die preparations for a no deal, might give him a presentational problem. But, so far, it is only a suggestion.

The talk of no deal might, of course, be all bluff and bluster and a deal will still be done, but, whatever happens, the Prime Minister is calling the shots, unhindered by any kind of effective opposition.

In the meantime, Mr Johnson and Mr Cummings are playing keepy-uppy down by the corner flag. They think it’s all over. And, quite possibly, it is.