Johnson calls May’s Brexit plan ‘a cheat’ (BBC)

Crowds packed into a speech by former foreign secretary Boris Johnson at the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham.

Mr Johnson renewed his attack on Theresa May’s Brexit plan, describing it as a “cheat” that could lead to a boost for the far-right.

In a wide-ranging speech, he also called for tax cuts and an increase in house-building.

Long queues formed outside the event more than an hour before he began.

He started with a self-deprecating joke about the chancellor’s Brexit warnings.

Philip Hammond’s prediction that Mr Johnson would never be prime minister, he said, could be “the only Treasury forecast in some time to have a distinct ring of truth”.

Mr Johnson said he wanted to “put some lead in the collective pencil” and end a “seeping away of our self-belief”.

He also spoke up for police use of stop-and-search.

But Brexit was his main focus as he called for the government to ditch the Chequers plan that led to his resignation from the government in July.

He denounced the proposals – at one point suggesting the PM risked being prosecuted under a 14th century law saying that “no foreign court or government shall have jurisdiction in this country” – describing it as an “outrage”. Read more

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