Johnson attacked for saying PM is wrapping 'suicide vest' around Britain 09:06, UK, Sunday 09 September 2018

Boris Johnson's onslaught comes less than a week after he wrote that Mrs May was 'waving the white flag'

By Jon Craig, chief political correspondent

Boris Johnson has accused Theresa May of wrapping a "suicide vest" around Britain and handing the detonator to Brussels.

Barely 24 hours after the former foreign secretary announced that he and his wife Marina Wheeler are to end their 25-year marriage, Mr Johnson used an article in the Mail On Sunday to dramatically turn up the heat on the prime minister.

He wrote: "At every stage in the talks so far, Brussels gets what Brussels wants.

"We have agreed to the EU's timetable; we have agreed to hand over £39bn, for nothing in return.

"Now under the Chequers proposal, we are set to agree to accept their rules - forever - with no say on the making of those rules. It is a humiliation.

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"We look like a seven-stone weakling being comically bent out of shape by a 500lb gorilla.

"And the reason is simple: Northern Ireland, and the insanity of the so-called 'backstop'. We have opened ourselves to perpetual political blackmail.

"We have wrapped a suicide vest around the British constitution - and handed the detonator to Michel Barnier.

"We have given him a jemmy with which Brussels can choose - at any time - to crack apart the Union between Great Britain and Northern Ireland."