Boris Johnson has urged the prime minister to abandon her Chequers plan and “change the course of the negotiation” on Brexit, in a 4,000-word intervention aiming to recapture the narrative before the Conservative party conference.

The piece sought to put to bed criticisms that Brexiters such as Johnson who oppose Theresa May’s plans for a common UK-EU rulebook on goods have no alternative of their own. “The single greatest failing has been the government’s appalling and inexplicable delay in setting out a vision for what Brexit is,” he said.



The former foreign secretary, who conceded that his alternative approach might need an extension of a transition period beyond 2020, accused May of a “pretty invertebrate performance”.

“There has been a collective failure of government, and a collapse of will by the British establishment, to deliver on the mandate of the people,” he wrote in an article for the Telegraph.

Johnson said it was “widely accepted that the UK is now in a weak position in the Brexit negotiations”, a tacit criticism of the prime minister’s negotiating approach, which he said had been defined by a “basic nervousness” and a “lack of conviction”. He said May’s premiership had been “in the grip of a fatal uncertainty about whether or not to leave the customs union”.

Jacob Rees-Mogg echoed Johnson’s criticisms, likening the Chequers plan to Count Dracula in that it “doesn’t have much life in the sunlight”. The chairman of the Eurosceptic European Research Group told BBC One’s Question Time: “I think the negotiations have been badly conducted, I think we have let the European Union make the running in negotiations, we agreed to their establishment of the terms of negotiations and the timetable of the negotiations.

Johnson’s article did not challenge May’s leadership directly, but was likely to fuel speculation that Johnson may move against the prime minister before the negotiations have been concluded.

Johnson was set to be the star turn at a rally on the eve of May’s speech at the conference in Birmingham, an appearance that would likely dominate any preview of the prime minister’s address.

Brussels and Dublin, he said in the article, had detected a reticence, particularly from the Treasury, about a clean break with the EU, which they had exploited. In turn, May and the chancellor, Philip Hammond, had lacked the will to investigate technological solutions to the Irish border, he added.

Instead, he said the UK should seek what he termed a “Super Canada” deal, which he said would involve UK and EU regulatory bodies ensuring conformity of goods with each other’s standards, as well as zero tariffs or quotas on imports and exports and investment in technological support for customs controls.

Johnson said there was “no need for a hard border” and said checks could be carried out away from the border crossing. May has insisted that a Canada-style free trade agreement would not comply with the need to avoid a hard border in Northern Ireland, forcing the UK to rely on the backstop agreed in December, which would create an unacceptable customs border down the Irish Sea.

However, the former foreign secretary acknowledged it was necessary to “buy some time” to negotiate a different deal. “We should face the possibility – remote though I believe it to be – that we will not be able to conclude a withdrawal agreement and political declaration on this basis in the next few months, or to agree the new SuperCanada FTA by 2020,” he said.

Johnson also made a veiled dig at his pro-leave former colleague Michael Gove. The environment secretary has urged Tory MPs to back May, having argued that future prime ministers would be able to change the relationship.

Johnson said there would be little motivation for the EU or a future prime minister to embark on fresh negotiations after the “grinding tedium” of the past two years. “This is the moment to change the course of the negotiations and do justice to the ambitions and potential of Brexit,” he said.