Johnson has lost the case for a no-deal Brexit. The only sensible option now is for a Final Say

Editorial: The logical step left, having ruled out a new Brexit policy, having ruled out no deal and having (shortly) ruled out a fresh general election, is for the issue to be put back the people

‘Johnson is playing poker ... his strategy is to bluff’ (AFP)

So short into its span, the Johnson government has the whiff of decay about it. Before he has even faced the House of Commons for a single formal session of Prime Minister’s Questions, it is apparent that on the key, central issue of Brexit, Boris Johnson does not carry the confidence or the authority of the House of Commons. Indeed, before his statement to parliament on the G7 summit, Mr Johnson suffered the humiliation of watching one member on his own benches, Philip Lee, cross the floor of the house to join the Liberal Democrats.

Symbolically, then, the government has lost its effective working majority – yet was already in a distinct minority without the support of the Democratic Unionist Party. In terms of substance, the impression is of a prime minister who is in office but not in power. He is big on blond bluster but hasn’t much of an argument to back it up. He looks and sounds shaky. He is.

No-deal Brexit is off the table, and it took the Commons only a matter of hours to make that plain on its first day back after the (overly long) summer recess. At the very first opportunity presented to it, a remarkable alliance of opposition parties and government backbenchers united to block this catastrophic outcome, entirely consistent with their positions in the past, and entirely in the national interest.