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Although Sir Oliver Letwin is as polite and cheerfully patient as ever, the battles of Brexit have left scars on Parliament’s most reluctant rebel.

“This has been a horrible period of my political life,” he admitted at one point in our interview. “I certainly would like to be out of the Commons.”

It is a week since the Conservative whip was stripped from the former Cabinet loyalist whose intellect and instinct for consensus once helped pilot the coalition government safely, but which this year masterminded the historic parliamentary counter-coup to stop a no-deal Brexit.

“It feels rather surreal,” he reflected on being cast out of the parliamentary party along with 20 other senior MPs, including Father of the House Ken Clarke and Winston Churchill’s grandson Sir Nicholas Soames. “The first I discovered it had formally been withdrawn was when Conservative Campaign HQ very properly wrote to me to say ‘did I hold any Conservative data’, which I don’t,” Sir Oliver said.

An hour after our interview, he phoned to say he had just discovered a voicemail from Chief Whip Mark Spencer giving him the news, a message that had gone unheard for a week.

He has accepted his fate without rancour. “It doesn’t make me angry in the sense that it was a perfectly legitimate process. It isn’t as if we didn’t know what we were doing.” Politicians, he pointed out, had a duty “to try, roughly speaking, to do what is kind-of the right thing”, even if it was painful.

Sir Oliver has the consolation of being confident that he and his allies have prevented a disorderly crash-out from the EU on October 31, though he admitted he was nervous up to the moment that the Queen gave royal assent to the Act requiring an Article 50 extension if no withdrawal agreement is approved.

Did he fear that No 10 had fresh tricks up their sleeve? He bridled: “There’s no question of tricks here. I think we still live in a society that is under the rule of law. This is not a game. This is about the fate of our fellow countrymen, the economy and the livelihoods of many of our fellow citizens. It isn’t a question of clever tricks, or ploys… it’s about what is the right outcome. If we care about anything, we care about the fact that once the law has been decided by our parliament it must be obeyed.”

He predicted the cross-party Act of Parliament would survive even if the Government appeals all the way to the Supreme Court. It was the result of months of meetings, involving a cast of MPs, lawyers, clerks and advisers with Letwin at the intellectual core.

The toughest part of the exercise, he revealed, was getting sign-off for the final wording from the diverse range of politicians involved.

“What takes time is not drafting or procedure but getting consensus among people of widely varying allegiances,” he said. The contrast between Sir Oliver’s patient bridge-building and the Prime Minister’s “die in a ditch” tactics is compelling.

Did he agree with the Scottish appeal court ruling yesterday, following a challenge led by SNP MP Joanna Cherry QC, that prorogation was just a ploy to “stymie” debate in Westminster? He said the truth would only come out when No 10 is forced to disclose its confidential communications or else “be found to be in contempt of Parliament”.

Shedding new light on the rebel tactics, he revealed that if it hadn’t been for prorogation, the Commons would have voted to sit through “most of the party conference season this year”.

Sir Oliver also revealed that his soundings make him certain that the European Union will not agree another extension of Article 50 beyond January unless there is an exceptional reason, such a second referendum. So a fresh countdown is already beginning.

“My personal preference remains for a deal,” said Sir Oliver, reminding us that he voted three times for Theresa May’s agreement and would back it, or something similar, again.

If a deal could not pass through the Commons then he would support a confirmatory referendum “to bring this to a close”.

But, still searching for consensus, Sir Oliver was wary of the winner-takes-all nature of another referendum. “In a democracy that voted 52-48 in favour of leaving … I think the only way to knit the country together is by compromise,” he said. “The best way to get that is through a deal rather than a referendum.”

He would definitely oppose trying to decide Brexit in the hurly-burly of a general election campaign. And he is pretty sure MPs are ready to keep postponing the election until after Brexit is decided.

“I can’t see how you can do that [resolve Brexit] very well in a general election where it will get, as Alan Duncan said in a marvellous speech this week, all muddled up in other things,” he said.

Was he in agreement with Tom Watson, the deputy Labour leader, who yesterday called for a referendum to be held before the election? Sir Oliver replied: “We need to resolve this issue of Brexit before there is a general election so that the election can be about who you want to have govern you, and so the resolution of the Brexit issue is separate. I would prefer that and, like Tom, I would prefer that to be done through the acceptance of a deal in Parliament.”

And where would that leave the Prime Minister’s plea for an immediate general election with Brexit on the ballot paper?

Sir Oliver replied in a musing tone: “I’ve heard all sorts of predictions of the election timing — next week, next minute, next day — but I have never been confident they were right because I think we will get a majority in the House of Commons who agree with the view that I take, which is that it is better to get the Brexit issues resolved first and have an election after.

“That means either you get a deal and get it in place, which is relatively quick, or you have a deal followed by a referendum, which is relatively long.”

So, is he saying a Brexit election, which the PM wants to be held this autumn, would be blocked by Parliament? “I think it is a proposition that is likely to go on being defeated. The Prime Minister can put that proposition any number of times but I don’t think it is one that is attractive to a majority in the House of Commons.

“The reason is that it muddles things up. Elections are decided on the basis of all sorts of concerns that people have about whom they want to have govern them. The Brexit issue is a different kind of issue.”

If he is right, an early election will be possible only if the PM gets a deal. But if it goes to a referendum, it would be delayed until summer 2020 at the least.

Would he support the idea of a government of national unity to take charge if the Johnson administration tries to collapse itself through a confidence vote? Sir Oliver said he would always seek the continuance of a Conservative government. He would not speculate on any alternatives except to say firmly that Jeremy Corbyn would not get enough support in the House to be an interim prime minister.

How about Mr Clarke as a unity PM? “I’m not going to spend my time speculating about such things,” Sir Oliver said.

Should Dominic Cummings, Mr Johnson’s controversial senior adviser, be fired? Sir Oliver said he is “not responsible for the PM’s staffing decisions” but pointed out: “I don’t think the strategy that Dominic Cummings has followed is a sensible one.”

Had Mr Johnson been more or less formidable than he had expected? “He is very formidable and he’s got huge qualities. I’m pretty much in favour of almost all the things he is doing. There is just one we really disagree about.” Of his own future, Sir Oliver said he would accept the Tory whip back if it was offered without strings. “I’m not going to start negotiating or making conditions or making applications,” he said. “If they wish to restore it, they can.”

Sir Oliver has said he is standing down as an MP at the next general election, but would retire tomorrow from Westminster if he could? “Nothing would please me more. I didn’t really want to be here anyway at this point in my life. I found myself in a position where I thought it was a matter of honour to fulfil my commitment to my constituency association [West Dorset] and stand in 2017, which I didn’t really want to do.”

Had he considered “taking the Chiltern Hundreds”, the traditional method for an MP to resign ahead of an election? “Yes, I have repeatedly thought about that for some time now. My view is ... I am under an obligation while I am here to carry on and try to do the right thing. Once there is a general election I really feel I will have done my bit.”