Please see my latest wire as Brexit diarist for The New York Sun, ‘Brexit Backtrack Hints of Treason, Johnson Warns’:
The most astonishing moment of Boris Johnson’s speech on the fringe of the British Conservative Party conference was his thinly-veiled suggestion that the compromise plan on Brexit backed by Prime Minister Theresa May is flirting with treason.The former foreign minister, laying the ground for his own bid for leadership, stopped short Tuesday of directly accusing Mrs. May & Co of having committed treason. He didn’t even use the T-word. He skated, though, close to the line.
Were Britain to leave the European Union and relinquish membership rights, yet remain subject to evolving trade regulations as part of the Chequers compromise, Mr. Johnson said, its authors would “risk prosecution under the 14th century statute of præmunire, which says that no foreign court or government shall have jurisdiction in this country.”
That was a nod to a series of laws designed to block papal authority, bowing to which was seen as an act of treason. The laws of præmunire are now defunct. The point, though, put into the sharpest relief yet the rift among the governing Conservatives.
My thanks to editor Seth Lipsky of The New York Sun.
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