If Boris Johnson can’t deliver Brexit, he might not last longer than 99 days

The parliamentary arithmetic facing Boris Johnson is even worse than his embattled predecessor Theresa May had to contend with. To break the deadlock, a referendum might be his only option

According to Boris Johnson himself, his government will be a “DUD” – Deliver Brexit, Unite the country and Defeat Jeremy Corbyn. He has exactly 99 days to deliver the first, the pre-condition of the others. Though it is very likely he may well end up failing on all three.

No sooner had Johnson completed his surprisingly weak acceptance speech in Westminster than the European Commission assassinated his Brexit plan. Frans Timmermans, the European Commission’s first vice president, reiterated that the EU was happy to redraft the political declaration, and was happy to meet the new British leader, but that renegotiating the UK-EU Withdrawal Agreement is impossible.

Of course Johnson and his allies always dismiss such talk as mere posturing, and gamble that the EU will soon cave in when they are threatened with no-deal Brexit and the UK withholding the £39bn “divorce settlement”. But a gamble is what that amounts to, and one in which the UK risks inflicting far more economic damage on itself than the much larger EU would suffer. It is an odd sort of threat.