Boris Johnson has warned of a Brexit “meltdown” and branded the Treasury the “heart of remain” in unguarded comments at a private dinner.

At the gathering of the Conservative Way Forward, a Thatcherite campaign group, he said exit talks were approaching a “moment of truth”. The foreign secretary said he believed Brexit will happen and would be “irreversible” but the “risk is that it will not be the one we want”.

In comments captured in a recording obtained by BuzzFeed News, he said Theresa May was “going to go into a phase where we are much more combative with Brussels”. He added: “You’ve got to face the fact there may now be a meltdown. OK? I don’t want anybody to panic during the meltdown. No panic. Pro bono publico, no bloody panic. It’s going to be all right in the end.”

Johnson suggested the chancellor Philip Hammond’s department was “basically the heart of remain”.

The foreign secretary also said that he was “increasingly admiring of Donald Trump” and has become “convinced that there is method in his madness”, according to a leaked recording from a private dinner for Tory activists.



“Imagine Trump doing Brexit,” Johnson said, according to the recording leaked to BuzzFeed News. “He’d go in bloody hard … There’d be all sorts of breakdowns, all sorts of chaos. Everyone would think he’d gone mad. But actually you might get somewhere. It’s a very, very good thought.”



Quick Guide What Boris Johnson said in leaked recording of speech Show Deep divisions in the cabinet over Brexit have been exposed in a secret recording of a speech Boris Johnson gave to the Conservative Way Forward group. Here are his most contentious comments on ... Donald Trump “Imagine Trump doing Brexit. He’d go in bloody hard … There’d be all sorts of breakdowns, all sorts of chaos. Everyone would think he’d gone mad. But actually you might get somewhere. It’s a very, very good thought.” Meltdown over Brexit “You’ve got to face the fact there may now be a meltdown. OK? I don’t want anybody to panic during the meltdown. No panic. Pro bono publico, no bloody panic. It’s going to be all right in the end.” The Treasury “The inner struggle is very, very difficult. The Treasury, which is basically the heart of remain, has seized the risk — what they don’t want is friction at the borders. They don’t want any disruption. So they’re sacrificing all the medium and long-term gains amid fear of short-term disruption. Do you see what I’m saying? “And that fear of short-term disruption has become so huge in people’s minds that they’re turning them all wet. Project Fear is really working on them. They’re terrified of this nonsense. It’s all mumbo jumbo.” EU’s orbit “The risk is that it will not be the [Brexit] we want and the risk is that we will end up in a sort of ante-room of the EU, with an orbit around the EU, in a customs union and to a large extent in the single market. So not really having full freedom on our trade policy, our tariffs schedules, and not having freedom with our regulatory framework either, in the lunar pull of the EU. “What they are trying to do is do a Brexit that does as little change as possible and that keeps us basically in the same orbital pull … and that would be the worst of both worlds.” Photograph: Toby Melville/X90004

After he had delivered the keynote speech at the group’s summer reception, at the Institute of Directors in London, a select group – including Conor Burns, the MP for Bournemouth West and the foreign secretary’s parliamentary private secretary – were said to have retired to a private room for dinner.



He revealed that the US wants Britain to “use our nuclear expertise to dismantle Kim Jong-un’s nuclear missile”.

“That’s what [Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state] asked me to do today,” Johnson said – a revelation that is likely to raise questions about the discretion of Britain’s top diplomat.

A friend of Johnson said: “This was a private dinner under Chatham House rules so it is sad and very disappointing that it has been covertly recorded and distributed to the media.”

On Brexit, Johnson told activists that the European commission is playing hardball during negotiations in order to prove it is not worth trying to leave to the other 27 member states.

He also questioned the weight laid on the contentious Irish border issue in the government’s approach to the negotiations.

“It’s so small and there are so few firms that actually use that border regularly, it’s just beyond belief that we’re allowing the tail to wag the dog in this way. We’re allowing the whole of our agenda to be dictated by this folly,” he said.

On China, Johnson said the UK needs to engage with the emerging superpower while recognising they remain commercial rivals.

“We need to engage with China diplomatically, treat China as our friend and our partner, but also recognise that they are our commercial rivals. And they will try to stiff us.”



Johnson predicted that Chinese companies would eventually take over from Silicon Valley as the world’s technology giants.

“The Americans have run the tech world for decades. Microsoft, Google, Apple, blah, blah, blah – we’re used to them winning,” the foreign secretary said.

“No, no, no. The Chinese are about to win. They’ve got 5G. They’ve found out a way. Everybody’s going to be getting stuff on their gizmos through the Chinese system and not the American system. So watch out for that one.”