Europhile Tory MPs, horrified by Boris Johnson's seemingly unassailable march towards Downing Street, are plotting their next moves. If he does succeed in clinching his dream job, the front runner to be Britain's next prime minister needs to be ready to deal with a small but implacable "awkward squad" in Tory ranks bent on sabotaging his Brexit vision. Mr Johnson still has to negotiate several more knock-out rounds of voting among Tory MPs, followed by a final two-candidate run-off decided by grassroots party members.
Yet at Westminster, most Tories outside the rival campaign camps are already talking about the regime to come rather than the final laps of the leadership race.
"Some colleagues will never accept that the Eurosceptic wing of the party has won, at least not before Brexit is delivered," one senior MP backing Mr Johnson told me. "As long as they see a chance to reverse the 2016 referendum result, they will do everything they can to stop Brexit happening."
In an early warning of their intent on Wednesday, former Cabinet minister Sir Oliver Letwin led nine other pro-Brussels Tories including Kenneth Clarke, Justine Greening and failed leadership candidate Sam Gyimah in voting with Labour to try to block any attempt by the next prime minister to force through a no-deal Brexit by suspending Parliament. In future crunch Brexit votes, their 10 votes would be enough to neutralise the support of the 10 Democratic Unionist Party MPs crucial to the Government's Commons majority.
Former Attorney General Dominic Grieve, another one of the Tory rebels, has signalled his readiness to topple the next prime minister if he
