The veteran Conservative, whose whip was temporarily removed by Boris Johnson earlier this year when he voted against the Government on Brexit, told Sky News Boris Johnson should form a “Brexit war cabinet” should he win the next general election. Sir Nicholas Soames, Winston Churchill’s grandson, claimed to have sent a letter to the Prime Minister in the hope he takes his advice. 

He told Adam Boulton: “I’m in no doubt and I’ve never been that Boris is a proper one nation liberal-conservative.

“And I think his time as mayor of London proves that, his manifesto as mayor of London quite clearly proves that.

“And his actions have proved it. I’m not in any doubt about that.

“I think that circumstances have dictated that he’s had to move onto certain things in order to get stuff done.”

He added: “In my view, he will probably want to start with a new team. It’s not for me to say but I really do think that he’s got to think carefully about how he does this.

“And I really do believe – and I’ve written to him – that if he were to win he needs to do what Theresa May should have done, which is create a Brexit cabinet, a war cabinet.

“Exclusively to deal with Brexit day by day, of four of five ministers intimately involved and bringing people in when you need them.

“And you have your ordinary cabinet to push ahead with your ordinary business that needs to be done in our manifesto to deliver all the other stuff outside Brexit.

“And that is the way, in my view, to genuinely show that you are a proper one-nation Tory.”

It comes as Express.co.uk has learnt that Brussels is preparing a post-Brexit “survival kit” for Boris Johnson to help him deliver his ambitious pledge to secure a trade deal in as little as 11 months.

European sources close to the talks said the bloc would allow for a “barebones package that looks a lot like no deal from an economic perspective” to be negotiated as the basis of its future relationship with Britain.

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Under the proposals, EU negotiators would insist on a “scalable evolution clause” that allows them to future-proof the trade deal to subsequent governments.

Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, has already poured cold water on the Prime Minister’s manifesto pledge to complete a trade deal by the end of next year.

The Brussels bureaucrat told a confidential meeting of MEPs that the time would be “too short”.

If Mr Johnson secures a workable majority after the general election, the EU is preparing to begin trade talks in February with the aim of having a new agreement in place at the end of the Brexit transition period on December 31, 2020.

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