Ben Habib: We will not get Brexit under Boris Johnson, but rather the break-up of the UK

It was not. The assault has been from all sides of the Brexit debate and, indeed, from all hues of the political spectrum. The prime minister’s association with the truth is so remote that no one with a bone of integrity can tolerate him in office any longer. Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid had hitherto been rock solid in their support. They have had enough.

If the Conservative Party does not join them and eject him by the time this article is published, it will lose the next election. It may already be too late. The Tories are ripping themselves apart. We saw this in the latter years of John Major. There then followed 13 years out of office.

And if Boris Johnson is ejected he would have set a record. The only prime minister in history to have won a landslide victory and be thrown out of office within three years. There is a chance that he will also set another record by having to resign as a Member of Parliament.

It would be a fall fully deserved. His biggest misrepresentations (in common parlance known as lying) relate to one issue. I am not referring to Partygate. Breaking lockdown laws was serious but it pales by the comparison to his treatment of Northern Ireland. He was elected on a promise that the country would leave the EU as one United Kingdom and yet he signed us up to the NI Protocol. He partitioned Northern Ireland from Great Britain. His very position as prime minister was founded on a lie – of monumental constitutional importance.

He then promised he would fix the protocol via the then contemplated trade agreement with the EU; he did not. He promised in 2020 he would neuter it via the Internal Market Bill; he did not. He said he would not hesitate to suspend it by invoking Article 16; he did not. Now he promises to set it largely aside with the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill; but the bill does not achieve this.

Many on my side of the debate worry that if Johnson goes, Brexit will be lost. I say we have not got Brexit and will never get it under this man. We are instead likely to see a break-up of the UK.

You do not reward gross misconduct and incompetence with incumbency. Boris Johnson must go!