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It’s tempting for those of us who are interested in the mechanics of the UK constitution to spend lots of time gaming how Johnson can be stopped from implementing a crash out Brexit.
But the real priority is to explain why a crash out Brexit would be both disastrous and a betrayal of Johnson’s and Vote Leave’s promises - and so completely devoid of any democratic mandate whatsoever.
Preliminary point: we should stop talking about “no deal”. “No deal” sounds vaguely reasonable. You just don’t do a deal. “Crash out” is more accurate, and should be used. Or (h/t @michaelgove) a “Belarus Brexit”. (See below.)
I suggest three points should be emphasised. In each the consequences of a crash out are serious and bad and are a breach of clear promises/commitments by Vote Leave/Johnson.
First, economic/trade. Vote Leave’s promises are encapsulated by this, from @michaelgove. See conservativehome.com/parliament/201… 
But a crash out Brexit is precisely the Belarus Brexit that Gove promised was a ridiculous possibility. Juncker has not joined UKIP.
On a Belarus Brexit U.K. goods suppliers face tariffs and checks from the EU, disrupting supply chains and business models.
And services suppliers - ranging from musicians to lawyers to haulage firms - lose all their rights to supply services in the EU, save to the limited extent the EU or Member States choose to let them.
See this warning by EY about the need for any U.K. citizens going to do any business for their employer or themselves in the EU beyond attending a meeting or conference to go through the complex process of getting a work permit. ft.com/content/67cc47…
Further, the U.K. either has to impose tariffs on its imports from the EU (pushing up prices especially food prices) or lower its tariffs for everyone (threatening its own producers and limiting what it can offer third countries in return for trade deals).
We were promised by Johnson and his friends that this wouldn’t happen. We were to have cheaper food, not more expensive food. But it is now the plan.
Second issue: it’s not just about the economy. As I pointed out here (h/t @anandMenon1).
A Belarus Brexit will produce legal chaos and disruption to countless individual lives. Most importantly it throws into chaos the lives of well over a million of our fellow citizens living in the EU, and their dependents.
And again, Johnson and his friends promised this would not happen. This is Johnson. telegraph.co.uk/politics/2016/…
(That whole article is worth a read, to see quite how distant a crash out is from what Johnson was promising in 2016.)
Third, the Irish border. Johnson and many others in Cabinet (including Raab and Gove) were and remained in the government that agreed that there would be no infrastructure or related checks at the Irish border.
That commitment was not a bizarre capitulation by Theresa May: it reflected what Vote Leave (through its leading member and current cabinet minister Theresa Villiers) promised during the referendum. news.sky.com/story/ireland-…
See
The commitment also recognises the political importance of not imposing a barrier that will divide border communities and which - unlike any other EU border - is not regarded as legitimate by a large number of those living around it.
So a crash out Brexit will lead to precisely the damage to our economy, our opportunities, our lives, and Ireland that Johnson and his friends in Vote Leave repeatedly and expressly promised would not happen.
That is the message that those opposed to a Belarus Brexit need to be getting out. /end
