(paywall) Off the Cliff < wow, SCATHING about BJ >
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/off-the-cliff-ds395tp5k
Boris Johnson is an ambitious man,
and it is reasonable that his lengthy intervention into Brexit negotiations this past weekend should have been regarded as a challenge to the prime minister’s authority.
Yet the Conservative Party’s internal soap opera, however diverting,
is of less importance than Britain’s future.
Mr Johnson is the holder of one of the great offices of state.
Unlike the government of which he is a part,
the foreign secretary has now expressed a clear vision not just of how Brexit negotiations should progress,
but also of the future of Britain thereafter.
Being not overburdened with such things at present,
the British public would be wise to consider it in detail.
Mr Johnson’s intention is not to heal a divided nation.
On the contrary, he is at pains to remind those who mourn Britain’s decision to leave the European Union that their best option is to lump it. 
Indeed, he goes further, suggesting that
“young people with the 12 stars lipsticked on their faces” are “beginning to have genuinely split allegiances”.
He is also unequivocal that Brexit must involve leaving both the single market and the customs union.
A desire not to do so, he writes,
“betrays a dismal lack of confidence in this country”.
This is poor stuff.
Just under half of the country wished to remain in the EU.
Quite a few of them still do.
Mr Johnson’s intimation of treason shows a marked change in a politician who used to pride himself, above all, on his likeability.
The foreign secretary himself was also quite recently a fan of remaining within the single market.
He knows full well that those who wish to preserve existing opportunities for British businesses are no less patriotic than those who wish to shut them off.
He also knows that anything less than the “frictionless trade” of which ministers still often speak will come with a cost,
and that no amount of rhetoric about “a glorious future” will help to pay it._
Mr Johnson insists that Britain should not make payments in exchange for access to the single market in the future.
David Davis, the Brexit secretary, has previously agreed with the chancellor that such payments could, in fact, be necessary.
He was also deeply unwise to resurrect the notion that Brexit could lead to Britain enjoying an extra £350 million a week,
much of which could be spent on the NHS.
Yesterday, Sir David Norgrove, the chairman of the UK Statistics Authority,
wrote to the foreign secretary to express “surprise and disappointment” that he had done so.
Since it was emblazoned on to a bus during the referendum,
the figure has become a byword for political mendacity, muddling net and gross contributions,
and being made up largely of money that either never leaves, comes back, or would still have to go anyway.
Mr Johnson cannot have been unaware of any of this.
It does not reflect well on him that he cared so little.
< ouch>
Few could disagree with Mr Johnson’s wish for stronger trade ties with Commonwealth nations,
but he neglects to mention that
few nations will wish to sign British trade deals without some indication of our future relationship with the EU.
He insists that “our system of standards will remain absolutely flush with the rest of the EU”
but also that Britain will take a lead on global deregulation.
Normally when Mr Johnson wishes to express ideas so mutually incompatible he at least does so in two separate articles rather than one 
The best thing one can say about the foreign secretary’s plan for Brexit is that at least he has one.
Theresa May is expected to outline her own when she speaks this week in Florence,
and the fact that Mr Johnson has had this opportunity says much about the vacuum she has allowed to develop.
Yet his Brexit is so hard as to be hardly different from the “cliff-edge” that many fear should negotiations collapse.
This is not a sensible vision for Britain’s future.
It may well be that he is more concerned about his own.