Now No10 blasts back at Boris

Anger after he refuses 4 times to rule out leader bid Ex- PM John Major warns the Boris plan ‘is puny’

DOWNING Street rounded on Boris Johnson last night following his latest attack on Theresa May’s Chequers plan.

Insiders accused the former foreign secretary of putting jobs and national unity at risk.

In a 4,600-word article, he had claimed the Chequers proposals were a ‘moral and intellectual humiliation’ that would cheat the electorate. And in a series of interviews, he refused four times to rule out challenging Mrs May for the Tory leadership. Asked if was seeking to depose her, Mr Johnson replied: ‘My job is to speak up for what I believe in and the vision that I’ve set out today and I believe in it very, very sincerely and I’m going to keep going for as long as it takes.’

Asked again if he could rule out a challenge, he added: ‘The Prime Minister will go on, as she has said to us herself, and as she said to the country. She’s a remarkable person, she will go on for as long as she feels it necessary.’ He also refused to say whether he would join hardline Eurosceptics in voting down Chequers if it came to the Commons. The row came as:

Mr Johnson’s former deputy Sir Alan Duncan said Tory MPs would never allow him to be PM;

Mrs May tried to wrest the agenda back to domestic issues with policies on housing and immigration;

Mr Johnson accused critics of ‘confected indignation’ over his claim that women in burkas look like bank robbers;

Ex-premier Sir John Major launched a thinly-veiled attack on Mr Johnson’s Brexit solution;

Mr Johnson said it was ‘ a very moot point’ whether Mrs May’s plan was worse than staying in the EU;

A poll of Tory activists found eight out of ten want the Prime Minister to quit before the next election;

No 10 braced itself for Mr Johnson giving a rival leader’s speech at the Birmingham gathering.

Mr Johnson’s incendiary intervention reignited the Tories’ Brexit wars, which are now certain to overshadow this week’s conference. He called on Mrs May to tear up the EU withdrawal agreement, which was signed last December following months of negotiations, and pursue a ‘super-Canada’ trade deal.

He said this would allow the UK to drop its obligation to ensure frictionless trade between Northern Ireland and the Republic, with technology ensuring there was no return to a hard border.

Mr Johnson, who was one of the leaders of the Vote Leave campaign, said he felt a responsibility to ensure the referendum result was delivered in full. A source pointed out however that the former foreign secretary was a member of the Cabinet that signed up to the December agreement, and had ‘praised the PM for doing so’.

In a pointed reference to Mr Johnson’s article, Sir John Major told an anti- Brexit meeting in South Shields last night: ‘ The trade deal that was being talked about in a prominent newspaper column, which is the one with Canada, actually took seven years and it was a pretty puny deal.’

Sir John said criticism of Mrs May by Brexit hardliners had become a distraction from the task of negotiating a deal. ‘The routine attacks on the PM in the most lurid fashion are not in the spirit of politics or helpful to EU negotiations,’ he added.

‘I strongly disagree with the way the PM is being treated by members of her own party. You see some of them having daily taunts and you see the inability of those delivering those taunts to come up with any alternative plan themselves.’

Brexit minister Chris Heaton-Harris said Mr Johnson’s proposals were ‘not workable and not negotiable’.

And Foreign Office minister Sir Alan described Mr Johnson’s intervention as self-indulgent.

He added: ‘He knows his so-called plan won’t work – it is just unhelpful, destructive grandstanding. He is not acting in the national interest, just his own selfish interest. People won’t stand for it any more. The Prime Minister needs full support, not more carping.’

Sir Alan said Tory MPs would never allow Mr Johnson to become PM.

‘He thinks he can be Britain’s Trump,’ he said. ‘It ain’t gonna fly. He had enormous electoral appeal but sadly he’s spent it. He risks bringing everything down.’

Former home secretary Amber Rudd said it was a fantasy to believe a Canada- style trade deal would ever be approved by parliament.

Miss Rudd said: ‘Boris’s intervention fails to consider the parliamentary maths. A Canada- style deal would not get through the House of Commons.’

But former minister Priti Patel said Mr Johnson had set out a viable plan that showed ‘how we can take back control of our country’.

‘Thinks he can be Britain’s Trump’