Boris’s week began badly and got steadily worse. Can he bounce back?

This has been a rough old week for Boris Johnson — and it’s not over yet. It is ending as it began, with the Prorogation Crisis, thanks to that courtroom drama queen, Gina Miller. Meanwhile,

the Prime Minister has suffered multiple parliamentary defeats, depriving him of control not only of the Commons, but also of Brexit and, crucially, the timing of a general election. 

The unkindest cut of all, of course, was a public withdrawal of brotherly love of the kind normally reserved for the fratricidal Miliband fréres. Having given Jo Johnson back the job he

coveted, as universities minister, Boris might have been forgiven for expecting loyalty, if not gratitude, from his kid brother. 

Not a bit of it. Jo resigned at what he must have known was the most damaging possible moment for his elder and better. Even worse was the explanation he tweeted — that he had been “torn

between family loyalty and the national interest”. In other words, Boris was so dangerous to the national interest that even family must be sacrificed to stop him. The message, from a

trusted insider, was chilling. You need to watch out for Big Brother.

It is hard to choose Boris Johnson’s worst moment in his worst week. There was his rambling speech to the police cadets, which was widely criticised as inappropriately political and ended

awkwardly after a female officer nearly fainted from the heat. There was the incident when Dominic Cummings, wine glass in hand and allegedly reeking of alcohol, confronted a bewildered

Jeremy Corbyn in a House of Commons corridor.

The most ominous episode, however, was Johnson’s first Prime Minister’s Questions. After a blustering performance at the despatch box, giving unconvincing responses to Corbyn’s unusually

focused questions about the Brexit negotiations, the Prime Minister was suddenly bowled an unexpected fast ball by the Labour MP for Slough, Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi. Speaking with barely

controlled fury, the first turbaned Sikh to sit in the Commons demanded an apology for the notorious Telegraph column in which Boris had ridiculed burqa-clad women. In response to this

“calling out” of the Prime Minister’s “racism”, the Opposition benches erupted in a burst of cheers and applause.

It was a doubly transgressive moment and for a fleeting second even Boris looked aghast. The atmosphere was electric as he rose to reply. Pointing out that the column in question was in fact

a defence of the right to wear the full veil, he reminded the House of the Labour Party’s disgraceful record on anti-Semitism, now under investigation by the EHRC. This piece of

whataboutery left Labour triumphant; and though it passed muster on the Government benches, the Liberal leader Jo Swinson later returned to the subject.

What was most striking about this exchange is that the Speaker allowed it to take place at all. Dhesi’s direct charge of racism was clearly a case of unparliamentary language, while the

behaviour of the Leader of the Opposition and his colleagues, in breaking the convention that applause is outlawed in the Commons, ought to have been severely censured. That did not happen.

Instead, Speaker Bercow let the PM sweat it out, and only later issued a mild reminder to the House as a whole. 

This example of biased chairmanship was of a piece with Bercow’s unilateral decision to allow PMQs to run on for a whole hour (it is meant to last 30 minutes). Moreover, instead of

maintaining a rough balance, he treated the 21 rebels as though they still took the Government whip and called three of them to ask questions, all of course hostile.

Sharpest was the ex-minister, now ex-Conservative, Margot James, who quoted Mrs Thatcher (“advisers advise, ministers decide”) in order to denounce Dominic Cummings, who has been fingered

for the newly draconian party discipline. Her rebuke was followed by a petition from more than a hundred loyal MPs in the 1922 Committee to restore the whip to the former Chancellor, the

Father of the House, Churchill’s grandson and the party’s very own rock star, Rory Stewart. (If they lose their seats, they could always form their own band: One Nation.)

Bad as the scenes in Westminster may seem, it is important to rise above the chaos. From the dreaming spires of Oxford, a great scholar offers a powerful reminder is of what is really at

stake over Brexit. In a letter to the Editor of The Times, Sir Noel Malcolm contradicts the argument of the paper’s leading Remainer, Lord Finkelstein, that “even if [no-deal] comes out all

right, it’s a hopeless long-term position”. “But those serious commentators who advocate it,” Sir Malcolm replies, “are not advocating it as a long-term position. They see it as enabling the

UK to negotiate new free trade deals, with the EU as well as with other countries.” He has no patience with “politicians denouncing no deal as if it were a nihilistic refusal ever to

negotiate”. But the Government can’t defend no deal as a transition to post-Brexit free trade, as long as it insists that it still hopes for a new deal before Brexit.

A week can feel like a long time in politics, but politicians as resilient as Boris Johnson usually bounce back. Though the memorable image of a reclining Rees-Mogg, which swiftly went

viral, is perhaps not the ideal look for an embattled Government, reculer pour mieux sauter is sometimes necessary. And what doesn’t kill Boris will make him stronger.

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