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City Hall is notionally still in business, but the Mayor is not allowed any noteworthy gestures that could influence the May election. Behind closed doors Boris Johnson and his advisers are in discussions. The name “Bear Grylls” is audible. Perhaps Boris is contemplating a period in the wilderness.

Everyone is trying to adapt to the new political landscape. Stephen Greenhalgh, the Mayor’s deputy, in charge of policing, paces in the corridor. Greenhalgh has publicly warned that Brexit could affect the security of London. Boris Johnson is at odds with the Government position, along with some of his own staff and a significant chunk of the capital. The City of London is firmly for Remain. The cover of the current Private Eye shows a stream of commuters crossing London Bridge. Johnson is cycling in the other direction with a speech bubble: “This way, everyone.” Has he blown his own legacy? And, with that joint call for Brexit, Zac Goldsmith’s chances?

Having made his decision, the Mayor has become passionate in his defence of it. “It was a very, very difficult decision to come out for Leave because I was desperate to try and convince myself we could have reform.” He is keen to show that his decision was not a last-minute calculation that he may now be regretting.

“I spent a lot of time in the past few months thinking about this and reading. I just think it is getting to the stage where they are trying to construct something that is anti-democratic and unsuitable for the UK. Look, I happen to care a lot about this. I think this thing is moving in the wrong direction.”

Does London agree with him? The handy thing about a cycling mayor is that the public can freely exchange opinions with him. He says he has had “what you might call mixed reactions”. But he adds: “For most of my electorate Europe is number 20 on their list of priorities.”

Yet he has staked his future and his legacy on Brexit. In the weeks he might have been doing a lap of honour as outgoing Mayor he has been savaged in the Commons by the Prime Minister, challenged by big business, and is on the opposite side to at least three siblings and to his father Stanley, who described his son’s decision as “career-ending”. One property boss who was a former admirer says “the City now has zero confidence in Boris”.

Johnson responds vehemently: “I can tell you, there are plenty of people who take a completely different view and think we would do very well outside. My dream would have been an outer tier with a different relationship. That’s not going to happen. There’s going to be a march towards a federal future which I don’t think we should really be a part of.

"The ones bellyaching about Europe are causing the UK to be trussed up, tied down like Gulliver"

‘The people who are now bellyaching and moaning and who are apprehensive are the very people who 13 years ago were saying Britain should join the euro. A distinguished former Tory chancellor said Britain would suffer substantial economic damage if we didn’t go into the euro. Donnez-moi un break!”

“These people are, in my view, massively under-confident about Britain. They are timid, they are allowing themselves to be spooked and they are causing this country to be trussed up, tied down like Gulliver.”

The antipathy to Brussels may be traced back 25 years to Johnson’s career as a Daily Telegraph reporter, but it has deepened during his time as Mayor. He complains that he has been unable to put a safer lorry zone in London because of Brussels harmonisation rules on cabs. “So female cyclists get crushed because those tipper trucks are not designed to save lives.”

He further claims that Crossrail tunnels had to be 50 per cent bigger in order to accommodate German trains. “What a load of cobblers! You are not going to get German trains running on Crossrail.” (In fact, the EU requirement was eventually overturned by the UK.)

David Cameron gave Boris Johnson VIP time to try to persuade him. Were his arguments ever going to convince the recalcitrant Mayor? “I made my views clear for a long time. We’re more than capable of flourishing outside an unreformed EU. I wanted to persuade myself that reform would happen. There’s been no real change.” Thus, the PM’s claims that he had won valuable reforms are brushed aside.

Boris had also demanded proof of a challenge to the European Court of Justice. He may have lost the support of brothers and sister on Brexit but his wife, Marina Wheeler, QC, stiffened his spine during the crucial decision-making weekend.

“I was talking to Marina about this. She is very moderate in many of her views but she is appalled by the expansion of some of the encroachments of the ECJ.” What about the PM’s paper on sovereignty he promised Boris? “It all ends up as an elaborate attempt to suck and blow at once, to say that something is both one thing and the other. It just doesn’t work.”

“Unless we make a stand now we will simply wake up on June 24 with absolutely nothing changed. Leaving will galvanise this country, it will be a massive shot of oxygen into the bloodstream.”

Boris’s sister Rachel wrote in last week’s Mail on Sunday that she predicted before he made his decision that the weight of the Establishment would descend on her brother. David Cameron scathingly announced in the Commons: “I have no other agenda than what is best for the country.”

Johnson says, curiously, he was not aware that he was under attack in the Commons, even though he muttered “rubbish” at the Prime Minister’s argument. “I actually didn’t notice. I was so wrapped up in meditation on the European treaties that I’m afraid whatever it was passed me by.” Whether or not this is true, Johnson and the Prime Minister are currently observing a truce of civility while their arguments are hardening. Johnson is not interested now in any further negotiation. Out is out.

This means that June 24 will be as decisive for his own career as for the country’s future. What role would suit him? “That is entirely up to the Prime Minister. I will be a mere backbench MP.”

Have you diminished your chances of a Cabinet job?

“That is not my concern.”

Is his father right, that his decision is career-ending?

Johnson sighs. “What career? I’m coming to the end of a wonderful time as Mayor. I’ve always said it was possible this would be the last big job I did in politics. My appetite for power is long since glutted, I assure you.”

Does he have any regrets about his mayoral role? True to his position of perpetual optimism and defiance, he says: “If I had a single regret it is that I was a little bit too bashful in getting the message across sometimes. A tragic excess of modesty. London is immeasurably richer and more successful than it was eight years ago.”

But are we seeing the first signs of the decline and fall of the gilded capital? The luxury housing market, for instance, is reportedly stalling. “Things go up and down, and so they should. If there’s a bit too much at the top end, that will come out. And if some luxury flats have to be divided into two to make them slightly more affordable for other people, I’m not going to weep hot tears. Look at the scale of building going on. There’s been nothing like it for 50 years.”

"If I had a single regret it is that I was a little bit too bashful in getting the message across sometimes"

The best thing about the job, he says, is “the sheer directness of it”. People do know that you’re in charge of stuff about their morning commute and that you carry the can for crime or housing or whatever.” "

It is this direct democracy that makes him so impatient of what he claims is the suffocating bureaucracy of Brussels. What was his happiest moment as Mayor? Was it, by any chance, the crowds shouting “Boris, Boris” at the Olympics, ignoring the figure of the Prime Minister? Funnily enough, he did not notice that, just as he missed the PM’s attack on him in the Commons. He freezes at questions about his relationship now with David Cameron or George Osborne. He answers loftily: “I think the more we talk about the microcosmographia of politics the less we can concentrate on what really matters, the issues.”

When asked how London has changed over the past few years the Mayor gives an unexpected answer. The criticism of London is that the phallic skyline, the new wealth and confidence, have also created inequality and division. Yet Johnson says what he notices is that London is now a kinder city.

“People used to say of Londoners 10 years ago that they didn’t like to talk to each other on the Tube, there wasn’t much communal feeling, it was a bit standoffish. I think what happened in the Olympics hasn’t gone away. People do engage with each other. Maybe it is because of selfies or social media or whatever but people are much less reserved. They are kinder, I think. I was cycling last night and some poor girl had got hurt. I was just struck by now many people were trying to help her. It just feels very giving.”

Some balm will certainly be required for the Conservative Party after June 23. As for the Johnson family, they are used to rough-and-tumble. Does Boris mind striking out on his own? “Yeah, none of them have got the…” He pauses. “I’d better be careful what I say.” Perhaps the phrase he’s thinking of is the one used by his sister in a text to Marina ahead of his decision: “He’ll need balls of steel.”