The betrayal of Sir Kim Darroch will be forgotten soon enough – just in time for Boris Johnson to make yet another mistake

Will Sir Kim Darroch’s resignation as Britain’s ambassador to the US have a lasting impact? That's the question now, isn’t it?

The diplomat’s decision, following the leak of official cables in which he criticised Donald Trump, was all but forced upon him by prime minister in waiting Boris Johnson’s conspicuous lack of support during the debate with leadership rival Jeremy Hunt that was televised by ITV.

The man who bloviated about Theresa May’s Brexit deal turning the UK into a “vassal state” publicly bent the knee to Washington and positioned himself as the orange one’s satrap.

The affair has correctly been described as a disgrace. It was swiftly followed by some tough talk and chest-beating from senior Conservatives, who recognised that a line had not just been crossed by their prospective leader. He’d gleefully bounced across it on a pogo stick and then turned around and pulled a silly face.

But was this a reassertion of the traditional Tory values that the careerists, cynics and cowards have colluded in the torching of as the party has veered off into a nationalist netherworld? Or was it just a five-minute fuss, the exercise of mouths without any trousers?

Remember, as the news cycle moves on, that we’ve been here before. Just ask the family of British mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who continues to languish in an Iranian jail. Johnson bears a heavy responsibility for her plight. His incorrectly saying she was “teaching journalism” when she had been on a family holiday was a gift to the Iranian authorities, who used his cavalier statement to politicise the case.

Despite it, he remained in post, continuing to diminish Britain’s standing for months afterwards. Zaghari-Ratcliffe remains in jail to this day. That she and her husband have had to take the step of launching a hunger strike to keep the case in the public eye speaks volumes.

The danger is that this will become just another one of those “Boris being Boris” episodes, good for a mention when the next one occurs and a place in the history books, but not much more as those bold enough to wave their fists in the aftermath queue up to submit their loyalty pledges to the dear leader under the watchful eyes of the Blu-kippers in their local associations.

There, we are told, are 30 Tories willing to stand up and be counted to prevent the next threatened outrage: the potential of an attempt to suspend, or prorogue parliament. This time, the reports say, it’ll be more than just Dominic Grieve, and Philip Lee and Sam Gyimah, and the handful of others who have shown a willingness to do more than just sign up to meaningless motions against a no-deal Brexit that appeared on no ballot and is supported by only a minority of the country.

Let’s just wait and see, shall we?

Right now Britain looks like Sergeant Neil Howie in the film The Wicker Man, imprisoned by a death cult, the members of which are dancing around with lit torches.

There was no escape for the hapless fool, who visited their island of his own free will. Britain, however, has one. It just depends upon sufficient numbers of Tories remembering what their party was supposed to be all about; stability, pragmatism, the union, fiscal responsibility.

There was a little common sense from an unlikely source this morning, with Lord Howard, the right-wing former Tory leader, taking to the Today Programme to warn against any attempt to suspend parliament, not least because what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

If Johnson were to open Pandora’s box, it would create a precedent, he warned. Its contents would be available for anyone with the means to use them. That could include Jeremy Corbyn.

“The second reason is that I don't think it would work because I think it would outrage enough Conservative MPs… to provoke them into supporting a motion of no confidence in the government.”

Darroch’s resignation was a jarring moment. I remain to be convinced that it will prove jarring enough. If you think I’m being overly pessimistic, recall the sequence of events leading up to it. Tory MPs knew there was a risk of something like this happening. Yet they allowed it.