Without a shot being fired, Boris Johnson and the no-dealers have taken over the palace

A few tens of thousands of hardline, no-deal, Farageists and Thatcherites have just taken over the government of Britain. This is full-on banana republic stuff

So that is what a very British coup looks like. A middle-aged Tory matron, Cheryl Gillan MP, Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, dressed in a sort of kaftan with nautical motif, reading out some numbers in the main hall of the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre. The last time Dame Cheryl found herself in such a high-profile role in our national life was during the parliamentary expenses scandal a decade ago, when she was criticised for claiming for three packets of dog food, to the value of £4.47 (comprising a £3.69 bag of Iams Senior Chicken dry meal for older dogs, plus two 39p cans of Cesar, chicken and turkey recipe). Now she finds herself at the head of a rather more outrageous dog’s dinner.

Il Dude himself, Boris Johnson, won 92,153 votes from his party’s membership. It represents two-thirds of the votes cast, in its own way quite an acceptable result, and pre-spun carefully as such. It also represents 0.14 per cent of the population of the United Kingdom. The other 66 million of us hardly got much of a look-in. It was left to the 70 per cent male, 97 per cent white and overwhelmingly wealthy and southern English Tories to execute the putsch. Of Johnson’s majority of 45,497 over Jeremy Hunt about three-quarters of them are the “Blukip” entryists who joined the party purely to get a hard-Brexit leader. Johnson might not have won quite so handily, or at all, without this faction behind him.

In any case, a few tens of thousands of hardline, no-deal, Farageists and Thatcherites have just taken over the government of Britain. Without a shot being fired. Just an old girl wearing a tent and a fat bloke with dyed blond hair and a posh accent in a room full of what Boris once called his “stooges” – useful idiots who make the terrible mistake of believing in Boris. Full-on banana republic stuff. Or straight banana republic stuff, perhaps we should say.

The Eton and Oxford-educated Che Guevara of Uxbridge made his way to the podium. A little tidier and more rested than usual (though presumably not yet benefiting from the huge reinforced galvanised bed that awaits him and, well, who knows which lucky girl, in the Downing Street bedroom), got up to say a (very) few words of thanks to Theresa May and give them the old shtick. Now, though, the campaign won, some of his jokes fell flat. When he asked this revolutionary cadre if they were “daunted”, rather than laughing at such an absurdity and yelling back, panto-style, “No!”, they stayed quiet, and, well, obviously daunted by what they had just done.

The same goes for the limpest pun ever to drop from those fleshy, eloquent lips of his. Johnson claimed that everyone now knew the mantra of his campaign – they didn’t – and the unfortunate acronym it had spelled out of DUD – Deliver Brexit, Unite the country, Defeat Jeremy Corbyn. But, he said they had forgotten the fourth letter – E, which stands for “energise”. Hence – DUDE. Few laughed. Perhaps they didn’t have the energy.

Nor did the hall seem especially energised when Boris told them they could have the closest possible economic and security relationship with “our European partners” as well as simultaneously being a “democratic self-governing” state. It was the latest iteration of the Johnson doctrine of being pro-cake and pro-eating it.

It was a poor start to the Johnson revolution. No Carrie. No policies. No plan for Brexit. The joke’s over.