This was the week when Boris Johnson's still very brief term as Prime Minister met reality.

This was because, for the first time he ventured outside the Westminster bubble and the comfort blanket of adoring Conservative party members. Scotland was a sharp dose of cold water, followed by similar treatment in Wales and Northern Ireland.

So, as the week went on, his anti-EU and anti-deal rhetoric had cooled. That meant common sense was back in the frame and Johnson is learning that while no deal might deliver Brexit, it could also split the UK he has committed himself to maintain.

Even surrounded by pro-Brexit sycophants, he must realise he cannot have both.

Scotland was always going to be difficult for him. Scottish Conservative party leader, Ruth Davidson, is someone he should ignore at his peril. He snubbed her by firing the Scottish Secretary, David Mundell. He is not going to get away with that again and needs to remember the turnaround she delivered at the 2017 general election.

Without what she did, Jeremy Corbyn would now be in Downing Street. He ignored her over Mundell, but she will not allow him to ignore her again by pursuing a no deal Brexit that would destroy one of Scotland's greatest industries.

Even the ebullient Johnson must be realising now that there is a big difference between bluffing the members of the Tory party in hustings and bluffing those that understand agriculture.

This was the week when it was clear he had no defence for criticism coming from the farming lobby. There is little sense in seeking to divide and rule the farming lobby by promising Scotland convergence cash, while pursuing policies that would destroy the industry.

Farmers saw through his claim that he would support agriculture as a great industry. He suggested that if things went wrong and we were closed out of other markets, trade deals elsewhere would create new and better opportunities. There was no hint of where or when.

He then said farmers would be better off outside the CAP, which is a fair point. However, he seemed to forget that it is CAP payments that keeps the industry afloat.

What he needed to give was a cast iron guarantee that we would have a better system and a guarantee of funding that would ensure farmers receive the same from a new support model as they would if the UK had remained in the EU.

Instead, we had – with no pun intended – woolly words about a support model rooted in protecting the environment. This seems a lot like greening – and if we cast our minds back to 2016 and the case made for leaving the EU, the complexity of greening was one of the trump cards in persuading many farmers to vote leave.

Instead of commitment to a sound future for agriculture we had more BS than a full slurry pit in mid-winter.

In the midst of all this, the Daily Telegraph, which idolises Johnson, dropped the bombshell that with a no deal Brexit, the government need legislation to impose tariffs on imports. It claimed no deal would leave farmers 'defenceless' against cheap imports, because the government could not get tariffs through parliament.

The EU would have no such problems imposing these on the UK, since those rules are already in place for third countries. That adds weight to warnings from the farming lobby that a no deal Brexit would be disastrous.

This week, the Welsh farming lobby warned of rural civil unrest while the English NFU warned of the mass slaughter of livestock.

This was all in the mix of a week 'good cop, bad cop' from Johnson. It began with PR photos of a Downing Street team with sleeves rolled up to deliver Brexit. This was all part of a message to the EU that the UK is serious about a no deal, including pumping £100m into an advertising campaign.

The EU, in response, stuck to its line that it would not budge from the core withdrawal deal and has already factored in the consequences of a botched UK departure. By the middle of the week, Johnson was hinting that the UK might have to stay in the customs union for two years.

This is all bluff and counter bluff, but on her well deserved holiday in Italy Theresa May must have a wry smile, while Ruth Davidson knows she put a good shot across the bows of the Johnson super-tanker.