Silence from Boris Johnson is generally extremely ominous. Johnson hasn't been heard from much since his deeply principled and not at all personally expedient resignation as Foreign Secretary two weeks ago, but it turns out he's been chatting to Donald Trump's former chief strategist Steve Bannon.

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Johnson has been "in direct communication with" Bannon over their next political movements, Buzzfeed News reports. Or, as Buzzfeed's source put it: "I’m sure they weren’t discussing the cricket scores."

The two men have reportedly been in contact for some time, swapping texts while Johnson was still at the Foreign Office and Bannon still at the White House. Bannon, the former head of far-right nationalist website Breitbart, a spiritual leader of the 'alt-right' and, in the view of the NAACP, a "symbol of white nationalism", was forced out of Trump's administration after having been a key strategist throughout the 2016 election campaign.

It was widely reported that Trump's doom-laden inauguration speech, which invoked Mad Max with its warnings of "American carnage", was co-written by Bannon. It was also reported by the New York Times that Bannon was the source of Trump's attempt to spread blame for the violence at Charlottesville to "many sides" rather than focusing on neo-Nazis and other far-right activists.

So what were they discussing? Bannon is currently in Europe, trying to launch a movement called, uh, The Movement. It's an attempt to band together and strategically support far-right European parties with the aim of destabilising the European parliament. Johnson, on the other hand, is widely expected to redouble his attacks on Theresa May's Chequers plan for Brexit and the "fog of self doubt" which he sees as having settled on May's government.

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