Boris Johnson compares Chequers deal to 'suicide vest'

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Boris Johnson has attacked Theresa's May's Brexit plan, saying she had "wrapped a suicide vest" around the British constitution and "handed the detonator" to Brussels.

Writing in the Mail on Sunday, the former foreign secretary said the Chequers deal had opened the UK to "perpetual political blackmail".

Mr Johnson quit his post in July after the plan was agreed by the cabinet.

Some Tory MPs have strongly criticised his language in the article.

Writing in the same paper, the current Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt called on the country to "back" the prime minister and her plan.

It is the first public comment from Mr Johnson since he and his wife, Marina Wheeler, confirmed they were getting divorced earlier this week.

The announcement followed newspaper allegations the former London mayor had been having an extra-marital affair.

In 2004, Mr Johnson was sacked from a shadow ministerial role by then-Conservative leader Michael Howard for allegedly lying over an affair with journalist Petronella Wyatt - something he had denied as an "inverted pyramid of piffle".

Elsewhere, the Sunday Times has reported that Mrs May's aides wrote a 4,000-word "dirty dossier" on Mr Johnson in 2016, exposing a "catalogue of lurid allegations" against him.