Johnson has survived, the moment to depose him has passed – and there are three reasons he is in a stronger position than before

The Metropolitan Police inquiry is complete – and Boris Johnson has received no more penalty notices. His total, from a four-month investigation that at one point threatened to bring him down, is just one fine, for what appears to be the least serious illegal gathering, when he was ambushed with a birthday cake in between meetings two years ago.

His political future was already no longer at immediate risk, but there was a widespread assumption that he would receive more penalty notices, which would have kept the “prime minister, law-breaker” story going at a low level. Now it is stuttering to its conclusion.

We still have the Sue Gray report to look forward to, probably next week. But that is now much less dangerous to Johnson than it was, despite the colourful anonymous briefings about how it will be “very bad” for him. I cannot be sure, but it may be that those briefings were designed to manage expectations on behalf of the prime minister. When Gray’s report is published and repeats many of the criticisms of her interim, filleted report, the effect is likely to be anti-climactic.

The interim report published in January after the police began their investigation had some harsh things to say about a “serious failure to observe … the standards expected of the entire British population at the time”, which represented “failures of leadership and judgement by different parts of No 10 and the Cabinet Office”, for which the prime minister must ultimately take responsibility.

But we know that now, and Johnson has survived. The moment to depose him has passed, and there are three reasons he is in a stronger position than he was in January. One is that there is no oven-ready alternative prime minister in the form of the most popular politician in Britain, since Rishi Sunak’s poorly received spring statement and the news of his wife’s non-dom tax status.

The second is that Keir Starmer is not as keen on hammering lockdown law-breaking as the issue with which to break the government while he is under investigation himself. And the third is that the local elections and national opinion polls were not and are not disastrous enough to overcome the natural tendency of Conservative MPs to put off doing something when they can quite happily do nothing.

One of the rebel MPs told me that “two or three colleagues” had last week put in letters expressing no confidence in Johnson’s leadership to Sir Graham Brady, the chair of the 1922 Committee. But I don’t believe that there are even half the 54 needed sitting in Sir Graham’s inbox (does he have a folder called “Doom for Boris” in Outlook, I wonder). And even if there were, I don’t believe that half the parliamentary party would currently vote to get rid of the prime minister.

Directionless and confused as Tory MPs are – Sam Coates of Sky News was publicly calling them “headless chickens” last night – they are not ready to unseat Johnson in favour of an uncertain contest among candidates who seem just as directionless and confused. No 10 is currently against a windfall tax, while Sunak is open to the idea.

Last night the chancellor took out a reference to the autumn Budget from his speech to the CBI when he delivered it, leaving his position on tax cuts even less clear. Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, seemed to be against any tax increases yesterday, while some of her “Thatcherite” supporters are in favour of a windfall tax on oil and gas companies if it will pay for tax cuts elsewhere.

That means that, although a lot of people will be furious that the prime minister escaped being penalised for attending gatherings for which junior civil servants were fined, that part of the story is over. It seems surprising that a party could have been illegal for some of the people at it and not for others, but that is the trouble you get into when you use the criminal law to try to regulate social mixing. Adam Wagner, the lawyer who has specialised in coronavirus legislation, always said that Johnson wouldn’t receive a penalty notice for the “bring your own booze” gathering in the Downing Street garden because he lives there.

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There will be a row about the accountability of the police. The public might think that we are entitled to know more about who did what and why some things were found to be legal and others not, and at what level officials are entitled to anonymity. Perhaps Gray’s civil service report will provide more information, and Johnson himself has long said that he will have a “lot” more to say when the inquiry is over.

Further and better particulars may be forthcoming, but it is hard to believe that anyone will now have their mind changed by any new account of what happened on those eight dates. Once Starmer is exonerated by Durham Police, as I expect him to be, and in less than four months’ time, the whole business will fade from the mind of the public.

Boris Johnson will be brought down one day, but it won’t be because he broke his own law during lockdowns.