ANALYSIS

that they have launched a campaign codenamed “Operation Arse” to stop him.

Johnson’s much-anticipated speech in a side hall in Birmingham laid out a domestic policy agenda aimed at boosting his credentials as Tory leader.

He whipped up the crowd by lashing Jeremy Corbyn and what he called Labour’s “weaselly cabal of superannuated Marxists and Hugo Chavez-admiring, anti-Semitismcondoning Kremlin apologists”.

But they clapped just as enthusiastically as he laid into his own party’s record in government, undermining Chancellor Philip Hammond by saying the Tories should pledge “no new tax increases”.

He reserved his fiercest attack for the Chequers deal and that was lapped up by about 20 pro-Brexit Tory MPs in the front row.

To a huge cheer from the audience, Johnson delivered his ritual “chuck Chequers” slogan with a raised fist. He knifed fellow Brexiteer Michael Gove’s argument that Britain should leave the EU, then negotiate a better deal down the line.

To more cheers, he said: “Do not believe we can bodge it now and fix it later.”

Having slashed Hammond, Gove and May, he took his sworn enemy Ruth Davidson’s words hostage, declaring she was right to argue it was HE DIDN’T go for the kill. In the end, Johnson even made a half-hearted plea for the party to show some loyalty to Theresa May.

So, while proving himself to be a massive distraction hypocritical to campaign for a second referendum on Brexit while opposing another Scottish independence vote.

In a half-hour of classic Johnson, he said the Chequers plan was a “cheat” which would see the country “effectively paraded in manacles down the Rue de la Loi like Caractacus”.

His comment was reference to a British chieftain who fought the Romans but was ultimately captured and forced to beg for his life. He scored high on hypocrisy by calling for more stop-and-search powers for police, a move he opposed while London mayor because it resulted in racist targeting.

But in the main, the speech was a rehash of his 4600 anti-Chequers article published last week.

He restated his call for a “SuperCanada” trade deal. But he had no answers on overcoming the trade barriers into the EU that would cause,