What will happen if the opponents of a no-deal Brexit fail to unite behind an alternative prime minister?

Opposition leaders have spent the past week squabbling over who should lead a caretaker government to stop Britain leaving the EU without agreement, writes John Rentoul

In the frame: Harriet Harman, Jeremy Corbyn and Kenneth Clarke (PA/Getty)

A majority of the House of Commons is opposed to Britain leaving the EU without agreement. All the opposition parties are against it, with the exception of Labour’s Sarah Champion, Caroline Flint, Kate Hoey and Graham Stringer, and at least 65 Conservative MPs have said they want to avoid a no-deal exit.

But how many of them are prepared to go to the extreme length of deposing Boris Johnson and replacing him with a temporary prime minister to prevent what they regard as a bad outcome?

That is a calculation that is impossible to make until we get closer to the crunch. Oliver Letwin, one of the leading Tory anti-no-dealers, said last month: “The mechanism can be done; whether there is a majority is less certain ... I have absolutely no clear view of how that majority can be formed and I don’t think we will know that until right up at the last moment.”