Editorial Comment:

The key phrase in Boris Johnson’s letter to Jeremy Corbyn, which asked for a general election, was: “It is our duty to end this nightmare.” That is what the Brexit process now feels like to so many people. Voters think they have woken up, only to discover that they are still asleep; the Government negotiates a withdrawal deal only for Parliament to block it.

But this time there really is no excuse for this nightmare to continue. Mr Johnson’s Withdrawal Agreement might not be perfect, but it is infinitely better than Theresa May’s deal, and almost the entire cohort of Brexiteer MPS is behind him. The problem is that there just aren’t enough Brexiteers in Parliament to pass the Withdrawal Agreement Bill without it being amended to shreds.

So there needs to be a general election as soon as possible. Hence, Jacob Rees-mogg announced yesterday that a motion for an election will be put to Parliament on Monday.

Unfortunately, under the terms of the lamentable Fixed-term Parliaments Act, the motion will require the support of two-thirds of MPS to take effect, and most Labour MPS want to avoid the judgment of their electors – badly. This naked self-interest comes as no surprise. Labour is morally bankrupt. It likes to pretend to be motivated by principle, by the red flag of socialist courage, but the party’s real cause is self-preservation.

Mr Corbyn has constantly said he wants an election, but when offered one before, he quickly backed down, and Labour’s position on Brexit is a fudge designed to hold together vastly different constituencies of support. Apparently Mr Corbyn would renegotiate our membership of the EU, trigger a referendum and then campaign either for or against his own deal, depending upon his mood.

The root of Labour’s existential crisis is that it cannot commit 100 per cent to Remain or Leave, which is a silly position to take when heading into an election that will presumably be solely about the UK’S membership of the EU. Mr Corbyn probably hopes the campaign will widen out into other areas of concern, such as austerity and welfare reform, and that is certainly what happened in 2017. But Mrs May lacked Mr Johnson’s vision and narrative. The current Prime Minister stands a much better chance of casting the election in terms favourable to the Conservatives.

The issue is no longer just Brexit. It is the question of whether or not the 2016 referendum actually counted at all: are we a democracy or not?

Mr Johnson will no doubt argue that Parliament has acted like an elite oligarchy, delaying, extending and blocking the will of the people. His challenge is to sell this message despite crossing his own line in the sand of “a Brexit by October 31”, something Nigel Farage will exploit. But the Prime Minister can reasonably argue that he did reopen the Withdrawal Agreement and he did put it to Parliament in time: he just came up against a wall of Remainer opposition, and he needs a pro-leave majority to break that wall down.

Yesterday, the Government sailed through a vote on the Queen’s Speech, which amounted to a vote of confidence in the Prime Minister. The problem at hand is not Mr Johnson or his Government or its domestic agenda, but a Parliament of Remainers that seeks to block the most important thing of all: a proper Brexit.