Letter of defeat proves Boris is not so clever after all

If the Prime Minister’s deal is so good he has nothing to fear from a second referendum

In the end, Boris Johnson obeyed the law. After relentless briefing from Downing Street that he had some clever wheeze to get round a law obliging him to ask the European Union for a Brexit delay should he fail to have gained parliamentary backing for a deal by 19 October, the Prime Minister bowed to the inevitable.

He did so in the most petulant way, sending a letter which he refused to sign and accompanying it with a second note in which he urged his European counterparts to agree that a further Brexit delay would be a mistake.

The bare facts of the matter are that the Prime Minister – who said he would rather be dead in a ditch than ask for a Brexit extension – has been defeated. All his bluster about getting Brexit done is exposed. His unsigned letter stunt might persuade hardened Brexiteers that he is putting up a fight but the reality is that he has capitulated. He had no choice.

The Prime Minister will now try again to get parliamentary agreement for his Brexit deal.

But Members of Parliament must think very carefully indeed before throwing their weight behind him. They should consider not only the substance of what he proposes but also the character of the man.

Mr Johnson has behaved – in the words of former deputy prime minister Michael Heseltine – like a “backstreet spiv” over his letter to the EU. MPS must consider whether they can trust him to behave with honour and propriety if they do back his withdrawal agreement.

Labour’s shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer says his party will back the Prime Minister’s deal if it is amended to include a second referendum. The Scotsman supports the idea of the question of the Johnson deal versus Remain being put to the people.

Politicians from across the spectrum insist that the British people now wish Brexit to be done and dusted so that our politics may move on. This may be so – though The Scotsman believes there is as considerable degree of wishful thinking in such as assertion – but impatience must not be the engine driving the UK’S exit from the European bloc. This is a matter of such grave importance, with implications for society, for our economy, and for the UK’S influence on the international stage, that rushing things would not only be imprudent, it would be reckless.

Today, anti-brexit campaigners including the QC Jolyon Maugham and the SNP MP Joanna Cherry, will return to the Court of Session in Edinburgh where the matter of whether the Prime Minister attempted to sabotage the law obliging him to ask for a Brexit extension will be discussed. Opponents suggest that the Prime Minister is in contempt of court after government lawyers earlier gave assurances that he would comply with the law.

If the court decides that Mr Johnson has – by sending a second letter to the EU – attempted to frustrate the law then his position would be further undermined.

Boris Johnson fancies himself as great statesman in the mould of his hero, Sir Winston Churchill, but we see precious few similarities between them.

The Prime Minister has risen to power on a wave of cheap populism, using underhand tactics and fuelling disharmony whenever it suits his personal ambition. He is not a unifying figure but a divisive one who, it is abundantly clear, places the advancement of Boris Johnson above the good of the nation.

If Boris Johnson and his Brexiteer acolytes are so very confident that the deal he proposes is good for the UK, they should fear nothing from asking the public to support it in a second referendum in which the option to remain is included.