The next Conservative leader should come clean to their party over Brexit

Editorial: With Johnson gone, the Brexit reset that Britain desperately needs will be far easier to achieve

There is no such thing as ‘making Brexit work’ (PA)

Could it really be, as Lord Heseltine says, that “if Boris goes, Brexit goes”?

That may seem at first glance an outlandish notion, given the way the Eurosceptic extreme right has captured the Conservatives at grassroots level and in parliament. Any leadership contender advocating even a modest rapprochement with Brussels would soon find themselves eliminated in what Mr Johnson calls his party’s “Darwinist” system for leadership elections. Lord Heseltine himself, a former deputy prime minister, had the whip removed during the purge of 2019, after all.

Still, he has a point. Such is the damage that Brexit is inflicting on the nation that any new prime minister will be forced to do something about it – unless they want to preside over a stagnant economy unable to support living standards and public services without huge state borrowing. Electoral oblivion would soon follow.