He’s risking his party and premiership ...but this High Noon has been a long time coming

When an audacious Boris Johnson vowed to see Brexit through on October 31 ‘do or die, come what may’, few expected the process would actually involve a political body- count.

But his brinkmanship last night — threatening the Westminster equivalent of Mafia- style hit squads against his enemies — means several political lives could be ended prematurely. Very possibly his own, too.

For the PM is pointing a gun at the heads of a group of Tory MPs, estimated at 40 in number, who are opposed to a no Deal Brexit.

no prisoners will be taken. either they sign up or they will be expunged from the party.

Johnson is fed up with waiting. he entered Downing Street with no intention of delaying Britain’s exit from the eU any longer. he had begun campaigning for Leave in 2016 and is furious it still hasn’t happened.

To him, the prize of Brexit — and the chance for him to invest in his own vision of a ‘new Britain’ — is much more important than keeping the Tory party united and a group of Remainer malcontents on board.

But this means risking a formal split in the Conservative Party, which could lose Johnson an election.

It is impossible to exaggerate the seriousness of this possible schism as Johnson — and his unelected enforcer-in-chief Dominic Cummings — plan to remove the party whip from MPs who vote against their own Government.

Those in the firing line are not just proBrussels backbenchers whose names are not generally known by the public.

Among those considering a challenge to the Prime Minister’s authority are Cabinet minister Amber Rudd, who has said it would be wrong to single out MPs opposed to a no Deal Brexit when those who rebelled against Theresa May’s deal escaped punishment.

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former Cabinet ministers Philip hammond, David Gauke and Rory Stewart are expected to defy Johnson and support Labour in the attempt by MPs to force him to seek an extension to Article 50 until January 31 if he cannot get a new deal before October 31. Compared with the rebels who blocked Mrs May’s eU Withdrawal Bill — mostly hardline Brexiteer backbenchers — these figures are big beasts.

Johnson knows his history and must realise playing with such high stakes is extremely risky.

The Conservatives have governed Britain for the best part of 250 years by avoiding such crises. They have been described as the greatest election-winning machine in the Western world, presiding over the British empire during Victorian times and surviving all upheavals since.

Yes, there have been bruising internecine battles along the way but nothing as bloody as what is happening now over how we leave the eU.

The scale of the feuding, rancour and bitterness is breathtaking, particularly if you consider how the Tory party’s instinct for survival was founded on it being a broad coalition of interests.

City and country. Protectionists and free traders. Rich and poor. Pro and anti-europeans.

The great Tory prime minister Benjamin Disraeli came up with a phrase that to this day sums up the generous and pragmatic spirit of the Conservative Party: ‘One nation Toryism’. he declared, in 1837, that ‘the Tory Party, unless it is a national party, is nothing’.

But despite claiming to champion that tradition — which he says is a bulwark of strong state provision and a free market economy — Boris Johnson risks killing it off.

Rather than uniting his party, he appears happy to become a divisive figure. By demanding a loyalty test from all Tory MPs, he seems to be valuing one quality — loyalty — above all others. Forget talent, service and expertise. Any man or woman who refuses to countenance a no Deal Brexit can get out.

As Cummings told a meeting of ministerial special advisers last week: ‘If you don’t like how I run things, there’s the door. F*** off!’

Thus Brexit- cleansed, what kind of Tory party would fight an election? Would it be a party of non-independent-minded hard Brexit clones? The answer to these questions will become clear, I believe, from the result of one acid test.

Will Sir nicholas Soames MP, Winston Churchill’s grandson, until now a party loyalist to his marrow, fall in line and compromise his views? Whatever he decides will show whether the Tories are set to be irreparably riven.

For their part, I doubt Philip hammond and David Gauke will bend to Johnson’s will.

Most crucially of all, what is Theresa May’s opinion? Will she back her successor as he embarks on a policy of embracing no Deal, which she refused to consider when Prime Minister?

Might she decide, in a deeply symbolic move, to take this opportunity to stand down as an MP and not fight any forthcoming General election?

The former PM is famously loyal to the Tory party. She has been a member all her adult life and is as synonymous with the party as local association bring-and-buy sales and the annual autumn party conference.

The idea of defying a three-line whip is utterly abhorrent to such a loyal woman. But could she find an excuse to abstain? What message would that send!

Regardless of personalities, a Conservative Party riven in two over Brexit — most likely for ever, as there would be no going back — would undoubtedly be punished in the General election that Johnson has now revealed would be held in just six weeks’ time if he is defeated today.

The fact is, this high noon has been coming for three decades.

The first fissures date back almost exactly 30 years to a speech by Margaret Thatcher in Bruges on September 20, 1988, when she warned against the growing risk of a ‘ european superstate exercising a new dominance from Brussels’.

This led pro-european Tories such as Michael heseltine and Geoffrey howe to galvanise a rebellion against her, and within little more than a year she was out of no 10.

Inevitably, too, the premiership of her successor, John Major, broke over europe.

And although David Cameron held the Brexit referendum in part to try to end the Tory civil war over europe, he succeeded only in making it worse and was forced to walk the plank himself.

BATTLES over the eU could kill the Johnson premiership, too.

history tells us that the Labour Party split in 1931 over austerity plans to reduce benefit payments to unemployed people under the national Assistance scheme. Labour was then out of power for a generation and it took World War II to make it electable again.

It is a gamble that Mr Johnson has decided must be taken. With a strong lead in the polls, he will take his chance by going to the country.

he knows the Labour Party is at war with itself. he can also take comfort in the fact that the Remain vote is deeply divided between Lib Dem voters, Labour voters and other small parties.

The PM undoubtedly calculates that given nigel Farage’s olive branch last night, the Tories can gain a good proportion of votes from the Brexit Party and thereby unify the Right wing of British politics.

All that said, the British people dislike unnecessary General elections and punish those who call them unnecessarily.

There is, however, one incontrovertible lesson of history: divided parties never win General elections.

The British people dislike unnecessary elections and punish those who call them