Let’s stop the knavery and tricks of Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal and march on the streets

Editorial: With Mr Johnson there can be no trust, and the parliamentarians are entirely right to resist being bounced in the euphoric (in some quarters) relief that some sort of UK-EU withdrawal agreement has been concluded

Boris Johnson will now put his deal before parliament (Getty)

Not for the first time (and hopefully there will be many more such occasions) the clever if sometimes eccentric Sir Oliver Letwin has rendered invaluable service to his country, if not his (former) party, the Conservatives.

Not for the first time, either, it comes in the form of a Commons amendment. Like the others, it has the great virtues of focus and simplicity. For all the drama about the Saturday sitting of the Commons, it need not be the last word on the Johnson deal, or Brexit.

For the Letwin amendment wisely withholds parliamentary assent from the so-called deal that Boris Johnson negotiated until the appropriate legislation has been properly scrutinised. Usually, the Commons works on a good deal of trust, in which such great decisions can be reached in principle and the detail dealt with later. In this case, within the bounds of an international treaty being transcribed into domestic law.