Journalist Rod Liddle claimed the frontrunner to be the next Prime Minister does not actually see Brexit as a “crucial issue” after all as he does not truly believe in it. Speaking on Iain Dale’s LBC show, Mr Liddle explained Mr Johnson was simply holding up no deal as a negotiating tool he had no intention of ever using, in a manner adopted similarly by Theresa May before him. The conversation arose when Iain Dale said: “If Jeremy Hunt pulls off a surprise, his problem is they’re going to see him as a bit of a Theresa May: somebody who voted Remain, maybe has pivoted since then but doesn’t feel Brexit in his gut in the way that presumably Boris Johnson does.”

Breaking into a dry smile, Mr Liddle asked: “Oh, you think so?”

Continuing, he said: “I don’t know what I would pay to look inside Boris Johnson’s gut.

“I really don’t think Brexit is a crucial issue for Boris at all.”

Incredulous, Mr Dale asked: “But it will define his political epitaph, won’t it?

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“Why do you think it doesn’t define him? I’d have thought most people would think it did.”

Mr Liddle explained: “It took him an awful long time to decide what side… but then he did decide.

“But I’m not sure he decided because he was, in the way that David Davis and Jacob Rees-Mogg are, clearly committed to the idea of Britain leaving and leaving with no deal if necessary.

“I don’t get that from Boris.”

Mr Dale asked: “So you therefore presumably believe that he could kick the can down the road beyond October 31 and extend Article 50?”

Without hesitation, Mr Liddle affirmed: “Oh, absolutely without question.

“And you can hear the same sort of stuff in what Boris is saying that you heard from Theresa.

“She would go to Brussels with this idea that no deal should be held up as a means of negotiating – not really believing in it herself.

“But back home, Philip Hammond and various other members of the cabinet were saying there’s not the slightest chance of no deal.

“Boris isn’t doing much different; he’s saying we must say there’s no deal, we can’t go into negotiation without saying no deal.

“If you’re telling them that it’s just a negotiating tool then it’s a paper tiger again.

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“But also he’s said that there’s a one-in-a-million chance of no deal.

“So they know that no deal is a paper tiger – it has no force for them.”

Challenges to Boris Johnson’s desire to lead the country through Brexit were further laid bare when a minister suggested he could vote to pull down his government if it pursues no deal.

The Conservative frontrunner in the race to become the next prime minister said he is willing to leave the EU without a deal as part of his “do or die” commitment to leave by the Halloween deadline.

But Parliament has shown itself to be hostile to the move, with Tory rebels voting to make the pursuit more challenging.

Health minister Stephen Hammond signalled on Friday that he would be willing to vote down a Johnson administration in a no-confidence vote if it pursued a deal-less departure.

Asked whether he was prepared to press the “nuclear button” with such a vote, he repeatedly cited putting the national interest before personal ambitions.

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