Boris Johnson prepared to trigger autumn election if Brussels won't budge

Boris Johnson's brutal cabinet cull will only serve to further organise and mobilise his enemies, Sky's Beth Rigby writes.

By Beth Rigby, political editor

Boris Johnson's slogan throughout the campaign was simple: unite the country, deliver Brexit and beat Jeremy Corbyn.
And on Wednesday, as he summoned his new cabinet and Number 10 team, we got a sense of how he intends to do it: purge the doubters, install the Vote Leave team into the back and front offices, and get on campaigning for Boris Johnson's vision of Brexit.
For this was as much an election machine that entered Downing Street on Wednesday as a government. And it is little wonder why: Mr Johnson has one mission as prime minister, to finish what he started in 2016 and get Brexit over the line.

"We are coming out on 31 October - no ifs, no buts. We will do a new deal, a better deal."
This is the man who won the referendum, but in turn helped to break the country and his party over Brexit. Now he has a chance to fix it and finish the job he began three years ago.
But the odds stacked against him: he has just 99 days to agree some sort of deal that took Theresa May two-and-a-half years; he has a working majority of just four; dozens of anti-no dealers in his ranks; a hostile parliament and a resolute EU.
When you're facing that level of opposition, what else to do than assemble your best Brexit delivery team and hunker down for a war.
Mr Johnson has set the terms of his own success or failure on getting Brexit over the line, saying: "I will take personal responsibility for the change I want to see. Never mind the backstop, the buck stops with me."
As prime minister he will step up no-deal planning in the hope the EU might blink and reach a compromise deal that will satisfy the most ardent of Brexiteers. If Brussels won't budge and parliament tries to block him, he has the team in place to trigger an autumn general election.
The Boris Johnson Brexit team were in campaign mode as soon as they left Number 10. His top team - Chancellor Sajid Javid, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, Home Secretary Priti Patel and International Trade Secretary Liz Truss - all delivering statements outside their departments. Mr Johnson says he is there to serve the people and he intends to get his message out.
Going for broke, Mr Johnson's was the most brutal of cabinet clearouts in living memory, as 11 cabinet ministers were sacked and another six resigned - jumping before they were pushed. Nearly all from the May era are gone.
Some Remainers had perhaps hoped Boris Johnson, who has always identified as a One Nation Tory, might have done things differently. They were to be bitterly disappointed. Nick Boles, now sitting as an independent MP having quit the party in protest over its Brexit policy, tweeted that the "hard right" had taken over the Conservatives.
He wrote: "Thatcherite, libertarians and No Deal Brexiteers control it top to bottom. Liberal One Nation Tories have been ruthlessly culled."
But Mr Johnson knows that if he can't get Brexit done by 31 October he'll have to face a general election, and he can't afford to have Mr Farage and the Brexit Party breathing down his neck. The Conservative Party grassroots are overwhelmingly eurosceptic and they now have a cabinet in their image.
His opponents in the party and parliament already preparing for battle. Wednesday was his show of strength, but his enemies will have theirs too. The exiled May cabinet will be a formidable presence on the backbenchers and the brutal cull by Mr Johnson will only serve to further organise and mobilise his enemies.
With just 99 days to deliver, Mr Johnson's reign could be the shortest ever. This is a prime minister who, for all the rhetoric, still really needs EU leaders to give him a deal. But what he proved in his ascension to power is that he's ready to fight a general election if they don't.

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