Boris Johnson has called Labour's bluff. Jeremy Corbyn should say no to an early election once again

The prime minister wants an election on his own bogus terms. He knows he might be able to govern with the most authoritarian political alliance the British people have ever known. Corbyn has no business helping to make that happen

Why has the government suddenly withdrawn its opposition to the bill to stop a no-deal Brexit, at about 1.30am this morning? A sudden nocturnal conversion to the national interest? An outbreak of statesmanship by Boris Johnson? Or, perhaps, some late night fevered calculations about the electoral politics of Brexit?

What do you think?

Jeremy Corbyn told Johnson, after the prime minister’s historic defeat on the bill in the Commons, that if “he wants to table a motion for a general election, fine. Get the bill through first in order to take no-deal off the table.” So the prime minister and his Svengali, Dominic Cummings, after a bit of name-calling and panicking, have spotted the opportunity: let Corbyn have his silly bill, call off the filibustering in the Lords and get it sent it to Her Majesty post-haste, slap it onto the statute books as soon as humanly possible. Then taunt and bully Corbyn until he missteps and agrees to an election on or around 15 October.

The elephant trap has been reset, then. But Corbyn and Labour should still resist the temptation to repeat the “triumph” of 2017 (in which, let us just soberly recall, they lost to Theresa May). Here is the respectable democratic genuine case for telling Johnson to get lost.

First, the public doesn't actually want another election. It is unnecessary, just like the 2017 snap poll was. When Johnson says nobody wants an early election, he is right.

Second, the overriding national interest is to kill off no-deal. That is what Keir Starmer promised in the Commons – and that that is Labour’s laser-focus. Luckily, Corbyn has said as much too. He had that excellent line about the gift apple being a poisoned one.

Corbyn also said this: “A general election isn’t a plaything for a prime minister to avoid his obligations, to dodge scrutiny, or renege on his commitments. He has committed to renegotiate Brexit - but where is it? Where is the plan? Where are the proposals?

“If he has a Brexit plan - be it no deal or this new mystery proposed deal we are yet to see any detail of, then he should put it before the people in a public vote, a referendum or a general election and seek a mandate from them. Let the prime minister go to Brussels tomorrow and ask for an extension so that he can seek a mandate for his unknown Brexit plan and put it before the people.”

Thus, Johnson has to have a policy to put the people – and Labour will not allow him to try and smuggle through a no-deal Brexit through the pretext of seeking a mandate for him personally.

Johnson cannot be trusted; the public knows that and doesn't rate him high for honesty. So an election can only happen after 31 October, when the immediate threat of no-deal is lifted. By that time, and not before, we will know whether Boris Johnson has got a deal with the EU or not. If not, then at least we will have the clear choice before us. In lieu of a referendum, that is something.

If Johnson promised an election on 15 October we could not be sure it would ever happen, and certainly not before 31 October. The timing of an election is constitutionally in the hands of the prime minister advising the Queen, but who can stop him abusing that convention? He and his team don’t care much for obeying the law. It really is that bad.

The Labour Party does not exist to do what Boris Johnson wants it to do. The much-maligned Fixed Term Parliament Act of 2011 was supposed to stop dodgy politicians gaming the system, and rightly so. There’s no need to indulge Johnson.

Third, when it comes to the insults, who is the bigger chicken? Is it maybe clucking Boris Johnson, who wants to cut and run before the reality of his shambling premiership becomes clear.

Indeed, Chicken Johnson is so "frit" of scrutiny that he is suspending parliament for five weeks, and would have done it for longer if he could have gotten away with it. Is the bigger chicken not Johnson, who spent most of the Tory leadership election evading media interviews and is yet to turn up on the Today programme? Plainly, it is Johnson who is running away from his EU “negotiations”, timing an election so that he can dish out unaffordable pre-election bribes and rigging poling day before the appalling impact of a no-deal Brexit, which he and his gang devoutly desire, hits the general public.

That cannot be permitted.

Johnson wants a unicorn election, one based on the usual fantasy about the amazing opportunities available after a clean Brexit, with only a few “bumps in the road” to be endured before the economy starts to boom again.

He wants an election on his own bogus terms, on a false prospectus and entirely in his own interest. He knows he might be able to govern with a ghastly Conservative-DUP-Brexit Party-Leave alliance – the most reactionary, authoritarian and hard-right regime the British people will ever have had to struggle under.

Corbyn has no business helping to make it happen.

He should hold his nerve. Corbyn should stuff Boris Johnson and leave him in the oven to roast a little longer.