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

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.