Robert Peston Robert Peston

Is breaking the Conservative party the way to save it?

Here is the measure of the madness.

An influential Cabinet minister Amber Rudd has resigned in a blaze of recriminations, citing the ‘assault on democracy and decency’ of Johnson’s expulsion last week of 21 Tories who oppose a no-deal Brexit.

But it will change nothing.

A lamed government without a majority won’t fall because the opposition does not want it to fall yet – not till after the EU summit of 17-18 October, such that their new law, that seeks to delay Brexit, has a chance to work its magic or its evil (up to you whether you think it’s white or black).

Rudd has been replaced at Work and Pensions by Therese Coffey, a personable minister apparently less frightened by a no-deal withdrawal from the EU. And there was seemingly no shortage of candidates for two months of being driven in an official car and being called Right Hon. ‘Lots of ambitious younger types already texting’, a Downing Street source told me last night.

But there is no chance of the new pensions secretary doing anything that might require a vote of MPs, because Johnson as a matter of policy (with his expulsions) has put a triple lock on his inability to govern.

Ne’er mind eh. There won’t actually be any votes for an unprecedented five weeks after the House rises on Monday night or Tuesday.

Johnson will then have five weeks, relatively unchallenged, to set out his stall for the general election, that will probably come in November, and also to prepare himself for the final test of whether direct democracy – the EU referendum in this case – trumps or is trumped by parliamentary democracy.

That test would terrify most prime ministers, because – as I’ve been saying – it involves him breaking the new law that would require him to sue EU leaders to delay Brexit till 31 January.

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Robert Peston
Written by
Robert Peston
Robert Peston is Political Editor of ITV News and host of the weekly political discussion show Peston. His articles originally appeared on his ITV News blog.

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