There may still be a way out for Boris Johnson: to pass Theresa May’s deal

The big question in British politics now is not if Boris Johnson will resign, but when. Should he go next week, or should he wait until 19 October, when the law requires him to sign a letter asking the EU for a Brexit extension?

All the routes out of the dead end seem to be closed. The Scottish National Party isn’t going to rescue him at the last moment by ditching the other parties in the anti-no-deal alliance and voting for an early election.

The prime minister can’t pass a motion of no confidence in his own government because the anti-no-deal parties will, to pile absurdity on absurdity, vote against it (that is, that they do have confidence in Her Majesty’s Government).

And I don’t think that even Johnson can seriously contemplate breaking the law by refusing to ask for an extension and trying to stay in office.

But there is one possible way out through which he may yet squeeze. The bill designed to block a no-deal Brexit, which will become law on Monday, says the prime minister must send the letter asking for an extension unless parliament has approved a withdrawal agreement.

Is it possible that MPs could finally vote for something very like Theresa May’s deal at the fourth time of asking? This has been known for some time as the Garamond Compromise: that if Johnson printed the withdrawal agreement in a new typeface – and Garamond is elegant – MPs might vote for something that was cosmetically different.

Is there a change – a bit more substantial than the font – that could be made to the withdrawal agreement that would persuade 30 more MPs than voted for it last time to do so at the last moment?

It doesn’t seem likely. Johnson cut the ground from under his own feet on Wednesday, when he said that, if the anti-no-deal bill became law, it “effectively ends the negotiations” with the EU. He meant that the EU side would have no incentive to compromise if it knew that we weren’t going to leave without a deal.

But he may have been too emphatic. It is possible that EU leaders might think that another extension would only postpone the problem rather than solve it. If they see the chance of what they call an orderly Brexit, with a deal, they may want to help make it happen.

They might calculate that further delay is likely to lead to the election of a Tory government, this time with a parliamentary majority in favour of a no-deal exit if necessary. They might decide that wearing down British resistance by an endless delay that eventually leads to a second referendum is more trouble than it is worth.

So they might think it was worth making minor concessions – I have no idea what they might be, but perhaps some form of words about sectoral checks away from the Irish border might be branded by Johnson as a democratic backstop rather than an undemocratic one.

Then we are back to the familiar arithmetic: if Johnson could win over 12 of the hard-Brexit Tory MPs who voted against May’s deal all three times – this time with the added inducement of being expelled from the party if they vote the wrong way (the disciplinarian crackdown on the soft-Brexiteers could pay dividends); if he could persuade the 10 DUP MPs; and if the 17 in Stephen Kinnock’s “Labour MPs for a Deal” group belatedly did what they regret not doing in the first place; then a withdrawal agreement could pass.

Well, unlikelier things have happened.