Boris Johnson is desperate to honour Jo Cox – so maybe he could talk about the real betrayal of the 17.4 million?

At last we have a prime minister prepared to say what all reasonable people think, that the best way to honour Jo Cox is to get Brexit done, rather than get bogged down in liberal concerns that her campaigning against it is what led to her murder.

Next he should insist the best way to honour Labour MP Jo Cox is to vote Conservative, and he must wish he’d instructed his lawyers to say the best way to honour Jo Cox is to allow him to suspend parliament for five weeks. Maybe this is how he seduces women too.

He must be hoping one day it becomes a throwaway phrase said by parents to get their kids to behave, like “the best way to honour Jo Cox is to tidy your room”.

Because at least Boris Johnson has made his strategy clear to everyone. Everything he does is to make him seem like the tribune of the little people against old elite institutions, standing up for the ordinary common Etonian millionaire, who is sick to death of the liberal elite who are so out of touch they have compassion for the memory of a woman who was killed.

Next week he’ll begin his speech at the Conservative conference by punching a nun in the face.

And this is only the start. Soon he’ll tell us the best way to honour Martin Luther King is to get Brexit done, and the best way to honour anyone murdered by General Franco is to leave the EU without a deal as they were all big fans of Brexit.

When Paula Sheriff MP said she had received “death threats from people who quote Johnson’s words”, he replied he’d “never heard so much humbug”. He said it with such convincing authority, it seemed possible the reason he was so sure was that he had sent the threats, and he’d only threatened to knock her about but never mentioned murder.

I hope Paula Sheriff realises how much humbug she must have said, for it to have been more humbug than Johnson had ever heard. Because Johnson heard himself say he had allowed a grant of £100,000 of public money to a friend’s technology company that seemed barely to exist or meet the criteria for the grant.

He also insisted, when accused of staging a “press opportunity”, “There’s no press here” in front of a crowd of press.

And he said the reason for suspending parliament was nothing to do with Brexit, which 11 judges dismissed as obvious nonsense. And that’s all in the last week. So you might think that even if Paula Sheriff said “I hold the world record for playing a tuba underwater and I can talk to zebras”, it wouldn’t come near Johnson’s own levels of humbug, but apparently she beat him, and should be very proud.

He’s making this sort of thing normal now, and each week he tries to be even more dramatic. Already his response to the unanimous verdict outlawing his suspension of parliament, was to reveal he’d do it again, like a young offender in a gritty film like Scum, telling his mates in borstal, “The judge said I weren’t allowed to prorogue, ha ha I don’t give a s***, next time I’ll do it for a year.”

So while it’s difficult to predict exactly what he’ll do next, most likely he’ll burst into the House of Commons with an AK47 and assassinate around 200 MPs. Then, after he’s found guilty of murder, he’ll announce he respects the court’s decision but profoundly disagrees with it, and having restored his majority he’ll sell the NHS to Trump, maybe in return for a pole dance.

He’s so nakedly copying Trump, he’ll tell his conference “we’re going to put a wall of sharks in the English Channel, and who’s going to pay for the sharks? FRANCE is going to pay for the sharks”.

And his supporters are now in such a fevered state, by the weekend, when Iain Duncan-Smith is asked about Johnson’s dismissal of the death threats, he’ll just emit a deep purring noise, then sing “respect the will of the people” and sit on Emily Maitlis with dribble running down his chin until he’s shot with a tranquilliser dart and sent to bed for three days.

Bernard Jenkin on Newsnight explained his leader’s words by saying “Think of the strain the prime minister is under”, and we should remember that. He’s had this job thrust upon him even though he never showed any ambition that he wanted to do it. And we should all remember that any of us, when we’re under pressure, react by insulting the memory of a woman who was murdered.

So often, when we’re frustrated because we get a parking ticket or the trains are cancelled, we snap and shout “Don’t whine to me about Joan of Arc”, it’s a natural reaction.

Even so, some people suggest the language in parliament should be toned down, for example we shouldn’t use the word “betrayal” about the 17.4 million people who voted to leave the EU.

But maybe it is an appropriate word. Because they voted Leave having been told a deal would be the easiest one ever to arrange, and bring £350m a week to the NHS, with no mention of medicine running out or historic levels of joyful boundless chaos. So for politicians to assume all this, including dismissing death threats, and insulting the names of the murdered, is being done in their name, could be said to be a complete betrayal of those 17.4 million.