"Boris Johnson will have the No10 black door paint under his fingernails when he leaves"

A few months ago a former Tory MP told me he would have to lose an election for him to go, "and maybe not even then", writes Mikey Smith< /p> (

Image: Peter Macdiarmid/LNP)

Boris Johnson's impression of 'Donald Trump with A-levels' is unlikely to reach its climax in a full-scale violent insurrection on the streets of Whitehall.

But when he's dragged out of Downing Street, he'll have the black paint of front door No10 sunk deep under his fingernails.

Downing Street is already saying the Prime Minister continues to believe he has a majority in his party, despite the steady stream of resignations over the past 24 hours.

But will Johnson leave of his own free will? Or will he (metaphorically or literally) handcuff himself to the gates of Downing Street?

Well, as the late great William Goldman would say, nobody knows anything.

A source familiar with the prime minister said Johnson was 'done' and if the resignations keep coming he will be 'gone by the end of the week'.

Others are less optimistic. A few months ago, a former Tory MP told me he would have to lose an election for him to go, "and maybe not even then".

Another told me today that they didn't think he would resign even if the 1922 committee changed the rules, and even if his MPs voted against him this time he would not resign.

Instead, he would insist he still had a mandate of 14 million voters, and if they tried to force him out, he would force an election - only stopping to deselect all those who spoke out against him.

A doomsday scenario, one might think. But not much different from his playbook when he had his back against the Brexit wall in 2019 - when he stripped the whip of 21 of his own party stalwarts who had opposed him.

And as of this writing, the Prime Minister is still due to face the Liaison Committee this afternoon - a 90-minute discussion from committee chairs, many of whom don't like it very much.< /p>

If there was even an idea in my mind that I was going to quit, I would probably find a way out of such an onerous commitment.

The next step, it is said, could be for the gray suits of the 1922 executive to pay him a visit, put the proverbial whiskey and gun on the table, and tell him his time is up.

That's what ended up happening to Theresa May, who, as the resignations began to roll in on Tuesday night, watched another clownish opera play out - Pagliacci at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden.

The play ends with the words: "The comedy is over."

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