Field louse
Bully Boris mocks PM as he prepares new leadership bid
BORIS Johnson was yesterday accused of not doing “grown-up” politics – then set about proving his critics right with a childish jibe at Theresa May.
The scheming former Foreign Secretary mocked the PM’s statement that the naughtiest thing she has ever done is to run through a farmer’s wheat field, by re-creating the scene.
Johnson set about humiliating Mrs May with the clearly staged picture near his Oxfordshire home where he knew photographers were gathered.
It came as he prepared for a speech at the Tory party conference in Birmingham today, where he is expected to launch yet another attack on the PM’s Chequers Brexit deal in the run up to an expected leadership bid.
The EU Leave poster boy is to speak at the Conservative Home fringe and issue a clarion call to activists to “believe in Conservative values” – as the party descended into full-scale civil war over Brexit. He has already branded her plan “deranged”, which sparked fury in the party.
And colleagues ripped into Mr Johnson after his field stunt, with many now finally seeing through his harmless buffoon-like exterior and realising there lies an ambitious bully who will stop at nothing to get his way.
Chancellor Philip Hammond insisted Johnson would never be PM. He said: “I don’t expect it to happen.”
Mr Hammond also made the grown-up politics jibe and added: “I’ve had many discussions with him on Brexit … Boris sits there, and at the end of it he says, ‘Yeah but, er, there must be a way, I mean, if you just, if you, erm, come on, we can do it Phil, we can do it. I know we can get there.’
“And that’s it. You know? No rebuttal of the arguments.”
Mr Hammond said Johnson has “no grasp of detail” and his greatest achievement was introducing “Boris bikes” while London mayor.
Mr Hammond yesterday delivered a speech in which he outlined Britain’s preparations for a no-deal Brexit.
He took a swipe at EU Council president Donald Tusk who two weeks ago claimed the PM’s Chequers blueprint “will not work”. Mr Hammond added: “That’s what people said about the lightbulb in 1878.”
Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab also leapt to the PM’s defence.
He said: “Some people say that no-deal is unthinkable. Wrong. What is unthinkable is that this government could be bullied, by the threat of some kind of economic embargo, into signing a one-sided deal against our interests.” But many within the party oppose the Chequers project – and Brexit itself.
Remainer Tory Philip Lee made the case for a second referendum and said: “I suspect there are significant numbers of colleagues who can see the argument for one.” Fellow Remainer Justine Greening claimed she believed a “growing number of Conservative MPs” want a fresh vote.
She added: “It is a question of ‘when’ not ‘if ’ they make their views known.”
But Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson warned the bitter infighting could propel Labour to power. She said: “Here’s the truth: we can agree a Brexit deal under the Conservatives, or risk handing the keys of Downing Street to Jeremy Corbyn.”
In another row, two of the Foreign Office’s most senior ex-diplomats turned on Jeremy Hunt after he compared the EU to the Soviet Union.
The comment was branded “unworthy of a Foreign Secretary” by Lord Ricketts, and his successor as Permanent Secretary Sir Simon Fraser called it a “failure of judgment”.
Mrs May made her embarrassing field of wheat claim during a TV interview last year.
She said: “I have to confess, when me and my friend, sort of, used to run through the fields of wheat.
“The farmers weren’t too pleased about that.”