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1. KLAXON ELEPHANT TRAP WARNING: if the SNP tables a vote of no confidence this week - as Johnson has allowed minority Opposition parties to do - it will be doing exactly, to the letter, what he is hoping for...
2. As Johnson hinted heavily to Andrew Marr, he could easily whip his own party - tactically - to vote against the government in such a vote. The bizarre coalition of Tory, DUP and SNP votes would get the total over 323: a simple majority.
3. This would trigger the 14-day period mandated by the Fixed-term Parliaments Act in which there would be a scramble to form an alternative government. This scramble would fail.
4. Corbyn will not step aside, Swinson won't sit in even a temporary government with Corbyn....there is no arithmetic that supports a government of national unity. So: after 14 days, a election is called.
5. The government determines the date of that election. Assuming a vote of no confidence in early October, the 14-day period expiring in the middle of the month, it is all but inevitable that October 31 would fall in the middle of the campaign.
6. Which means that Parliament would not be sitting as the Johnson government did all in its power to evade the Benn Act preventing a no-deal Brexit. And - since Parliament had asked for an election - it would be in a weak position to seek judicial review.
7. Any legal action would have to contend that ministers were acting unlawfully in their evasion of the Benn Act: a roll of the dice, to say the least.
8. In which case, Brexit happens DURING the campaign, and Johnson makes it the centre-piece of his bid for a majority. He has, to adapt the #ConservativePartyConference slogan 'Got Brexit Done': a powerful electoral claim, however terrible the actual results.
So, Sturgeon, Blackford et al: be very, very careful what you wish for. Remember: this PM badly wants an election. Do you want to give hime one? ENDS.
