BorisWatch: Former foreign secretary labels Chequers an ‘outrage’

Here’s the latest:

5pm – Later, Theresa May said she had not watched Boris Johnson’s speech but was “cross” and frustrated about some of the things he had said.

She told the BBC: “This afternoon I have been meeting activists, I’ve been talking to people about the conference and seeing a party that’s in really good heart.”

And she added: “There are one or two things that Boris said that I’m cross about. He wants to tear up our guarantee to the people of Northern Ireland.

“Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom. We are all – he and I and all members here are members of the Conservative and Unionist Party. That’s because we believe in the Union of the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland is part of that Union.

“We have a guarantee for the people of Northern Ireland and we are upholding that. Our Chequers plan does that. It is the only plan on the table at the moment that does.”

3.35pm – Ex-minister John Redwood also said the PM had to understand that mainstream opinion in the party was bitterly opposed to her plan.

He said: “She has got to listen to it because this is the heart of the nation, the heart of the party.

“This is not some fringe element, this is where the country is, this is what 17.4 million people voted for.”

3.25pm – Highlights of Boris Johnson’s speech.

3.15pm – Former environment secretary Owen Paterson said: “She must chuck Chequers and go back to her manifesto, on which she won the second largest number of votes since John Major.”

He said the attendance at Mr Johnson’s speech was “a massive political statement” and “we are the mainstream”.

2.50pm – Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith said party chiefs had to recognise when the membership is “saying something to you” following Mr Johnson’s speech.

With Mrs May’s keynote conference speech due tomorrow, Mr Duncan Smith said: “This hall could have been filled half again by people wanting to hear an upbeat message about who we are and where we are going.

“I have to tell you, I want the Prime Minister to reflect that tomorrow. We tried – she sent Chequers to the EU and they said they didn’t like it.

“She needs to tell them now: ‘OK, great, if you want free trade you have got to break the backstop nonsense, otherwise we are going to WTO.’

“She will get a standing ovation.

“The country will back her because they want to get out, that’s what they voted for.”

2.25pm – During the speech, Mr Johnson appeared to concede he would not be prime minister.

2.05pm – Reacting to the speech, David Drew, who sits on Test Valley Borough Council, said: “Boris is a great performer. He obviously wowed the crowd.

“I was a little concerned when he got such applause for saying we should chuck Chequers because I think it’s a starting site.”

1.59pm – Former Brexit secretary David Davis, speaking to the Press Association, said of Mr Johnson’s event: “It was a good speech, nice and clear.”

Asked what impact it would have on Mrs May’s keynote speech on Wednesday, Mr Davis told PA: “It’s a different speech, she’s the Prime Minister, she’s got to give a serious speech about the future of not just Brexit but all the other elements of the domestic strategy – which of course Boris was talking about too. She’ll make a good speech.”

1.40pm – The former foreign secretary concluded: “I hope you will join me in urging our friends in Government to deliver what the people voted for, to back Theresa May in the best way possible, by softly, quietly and sensibly supporting her original plan. And in so doing to show confidence in Conservatism and in our country.

“Because if we get it wrong we will be punished. And if we get it right we can have a glorious future.

“This Government will then be remembered for having done something brave and right and remarkable and in accordance with the wishes of the people.”

He won a standing ovation from audience members at the end of his speech.

1.36pm – Mr Johnson said agreeing the Chequers proposals would “embolden” those calling for a second referendum.

He said: “These are the same people, incidentally, who explicitly told the electorate that there was no going back, that voting leave meant leaving the customs union and the single market, and that there was no way they would be asked again.”

1.34pm – Mr Johnson said Chequers is a “constitutional outrage”.

“This is not pragmatic, that is not a compromise. It is dangerous and unstable – politically and economically.”

He won applause as he said: “My fellow Conservatives, this is not democracy. This is not what we voted for.

“It is a constitutional outrage. This is not taking back control: it is forfeiting control. They know it in Brussels.”

1.31pm – Mr Johnson said the EU “will always be colossally important” but the “rest of the world is proportionally gaining ground”.

He said: “Think what we could do with proper free trade deals. And that is why it is so sad, so desperately wrong, that we are preparing to agree terms with Brussels that would make it difficult if not impossible to do such deals.

“And that is why it is such a mistake for us to leave on the Chequers terms, locked in the tractor beam of Brussels.

“We will not only be prevented from offering our tariff schedules, we will be unable to make our own laws, to vary our regulatory framework for goods, agrifoods and much much more besides.

“This is politically humiliating for a £2 trillion economy.”

1.22pm – Mr Johnson called for the party to follow its Conservative instincts and give millions more young people the chance to become owner-occupiers.

He called for a crackdown on landbanking and encouragement for small private builders.

Mr Johnson said the big eight house-builders were abusing their dominant position.

He said councils should be given the ability to retain stamp duty, council tax, and business rates, which would act as a motive for growth.

1.16pm – Mr Johnson said: “There is only one thing I really worry about in this critical autumn of 2018, and that is that, after 200 years, this oldest and most successful of all political parties should somehow lose confidence in its basic belief in freedom.

“And that, after 1,000 years of independence, this country might really lose confidence in its democratic institutions.

“And that we should be so demoralised and so exhausted as to submit those institutions – forever – to foreign rule.”

1.15pm – Mr Johnson won applause as he said: “We cannot, we must not and will not let this weaselly cabal of superannuated Marxists and Hugo Chavez-admiring, anti-Semitism-condoning Kremlin apologists anywhere near the government of this country.”

1.11pm – Mr Johnson used his speech to launch an attack on Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour: “Surely to goodness we can take on this Tony Benn tribute act and wallop them for six.

“Not by imitating them, not by capering insincerely on Labour turf … but by systematically pointing out the damage they would do.”

1.08pm – Mr Johnson arrived in the conference centre to be greeted by a scrum of reporters and cameras.

The former foreign secretary did not answer questions from the pack as he was followed through the building.

1.06pm – Dismissing the significance of Mr Johnson’s speech, business minister Claire Perry told Sky News: “It’s a travelling circus that comes to town. He thrives on publicity, he doesn’t have a policy backbone anywhere on him.

“Who doesn’t want to see the court jester arrive? But behind the scenes all the deadly serious work of delivering Brexit goes on.”

1.01pm – Former Brexit secretary David Davis sat on the front row to listen to his ex-Cabinet colleague’s speech.

1pm – Home Secretary Sajid Javid was one Tory MP who was not tuning into Mr Johnson’s speech, saying he was “going for some lunch”.

12.43pm – Other Tory MPs in the audience for Mr Johnson’s speech included Zac Goldsmith, Peter Bone, ex-Brexit minister Steve Baker and Andrew Bridgen.

12.30pm – Former Cabinet ministers Priti Patel and Owen Paterson, along with Mr Johnson’s father Stanley, were among the crowd in the 1,500-capacity hall waiting for the speech.

11.20am – Colin Belsey, 73, a councillor from Eastbourne, said if Mr Johnson “had been a gentleman he wouldn’t have come”.

“But he has come, so be it, and there’ll be several hundred-odd people wanting to listen to him, that’s fine, but I won’t be rushing out there to listen to him.”

Karen May, a councillor from Bromsgrove, told the Press Association: “He’s entitled to be here as a party member … I’m more concerned we get this wretched Brexit deal and it’s constructive and we don’t get the distraction of sideplays.”

11am – Anti-Brexit campaigner Steven Bray, from Bridgend, used a loudhailer to heckle Mr Johnson through a security fence as he arrived at the conference hotel.

“Come and collect your prize for biggest liar ever,” shouted Mr Bray, a member of the Stand Of Defiance European Movement who regularly demonstrates outside Parliament.

10.49am – Party members arriving at the conference welcomed Mr Johnson’s attendance.

Barbara Tan, from Virginia Water, said the former foreign secretary has “something that warms the cockles of everyone”.

“People love him. He’s a Conservative right through and through,” she told the Press Association.

10.42am – An anti-Brexit protester waving a Union Flag and the EU’s standard loitered outside the fence surrounding the conference venue as reporters and photographers waited for Boris Johnson’s arrival.

A group of Brexiteer MPs including Ross Thomson, Ben Bradley, Anne-Marie Trevelyan and Andrea Jenkyns were present to meet him.

As he arrived, accompanied by fellow Brexiteer Conor Burns, Mr Johnson ignored questions about whether his presence was undermining Theresa May.

10.26am – Boris Johnson’s father Stanley said he hoped his son would give an “invigorating speech” that “draws a considerable crowd”.

Despite being a Remain campaigner, Stanley Johnson said the former foreign secretary was “100% right about Chequers”, hitting out at the way it would leave the UK bound by EU rules without a seat at the table.

Stanley Johnson said: “Boris used the word ‘deranged’. I think that is almost too gentle a term.”

10.24am – Theresa May sought to play down Mr Johnson’s arrival at the conference, saying of his speech: “I’m sure that’s going to be a very lively event.

“At this conference what we’re focusing on is the opportunity for this country once we leave the European Union and the opportunity that we want to ensure that people in this country have.”