Theresa May arrives at Tory conference amid gathering Brexit storm

The Tory civil war over Europe showed no sign of abating as Prime Minister Theresa May arrived for the party’s autumn conference.

The gathering in Birmingham has been marked by a deepening rift over Brexit policy, with former foreign secretary Boris Johnson at the centre of a vicious row over the party’s direction.

The Conservative Party was also hit by an embarrassing security gaffe as a flaw in the official conference app allowed access to the contact details of Cabinet ministers and senior MPs.

Mrs May ignored questions from reporters as she arrived on the eve of conference wearing a dress in Tory blue.

Activists and journalists heading to the conference discovered a major security problem in the official app which many use to keep track of events.

A Tory spokesman said the “technical issue” had been resolved but “we are investigating the issue further and apologise for any concern caused”.

The Information Commissioner’s Office said “we will be making enquiries with the Conservative Party” and “organisations have a legal duty to keep personal data safe and secure”.

The profiles of former foreign secretary Mr Johnson and Environment Secretary Michael Gove were among those reportedly accessed.

The run-up to Sunday’s conference has been marked by divisions over Mrs May’s Brexit blueprint, the Chequers plan thrashed out by her Cabinet.

Mr Johnson – who will deliver a speech at a fringe event on Tuesday which is likely to be viewed as a leadership pitch – fired a broadside at the Prime Minister ahead of the gathering.

The Brexiteer used a round of television interviews on Friday to lash out at Mrs May’s negotiating strategy, refusing to rule out a leadership challenge or voting against a Brexit deal.

His comments, which followed a lengthy newspaper article attacking the PM’s Chequers plan, was attacked by political opponents within the party.

Former education secretary Nicky Morgan told the PoliticsHome website that Mr Johnson’s alternative plan, dubbed “Super Canada”, was “pie in the sky”, while Justice Secretary David Gauke warned it could break up the UK if adopted.

Backbencher Heidi Allen hit out at the party’s Eurosceptics, saying they have tied the Prime Minister’s hands over Brexit and left her Chequers plan “dead”.

The Cambridgeshire South MP said she would back a second referendum on leaving the EU because the Brexiteers had “behaved unacceptably” in trashing Chequers.

Former minister Anna Soubry also backed the People’s Vote campaign for another referendum, saying Chequers was dead due to “hard Brexit” Tories, and the Prime Minister’s only alternative plan was the “disaster” of leaving without a deal.

Mr Johnson’s proposals were defended by fellow hardline Brexiteers including Jacob Rees-Mogg, who likened the Prime Minister’s Chequers blueprint to the Charge of the Light Brigade, saying it was “a brave and mistaken dash against all the odds”.

Speaking to the BBC on Friday, Mr Johnson was asked repeatedly to rule out running against Mrs May.

He said: “The Prime Minister will go on, as she said to us herself, and as she said to the country, she’s a remarkable person, she will go on for as long as she feels it necessary.

“But the most important thing for me is to avert what I think would be a political and economic disaster for this country, which is to agree to come out of the EU but still to be run by the EU. What is the point of that, what will we have done?

“And I think there is still time for her to change course.”

The former foreign secretary, who quit the Cabinet in July, argued for a new withdrawal agreement dubbed “Super Canada”, which says the Irish border question will be settled as part of the deal on the future economic arrangements.

Number 10 hit back at his proposal, with a source pointing out Mr Johnson had been part of the committee that agreed the need for a customs backstop in Northern Ireland.

Mr Gauke warned that a Canada-style deal could have grave consequences for the union.

He told the i newspaper: “If we end up with an arrangement whereby Great Britain leaves the single market and the customs union, and Northern Ireland stays in the single market and customs union, then over time Northern Ireland will become more and more integrated into the Irish Republic’s economy and less integrated into Great Britain’s economy.

“It’s hard to see how that doesn’t end in Northern Ireland leaving the UK.”

Mrs Morgan told PoliticsHome that Mr Johnson’s timing was deliberate, saying: “He knows how important the party conference is to the Prime Minister, to the party, and it’s obviously designed to make it clear that, yet again, we will be talking as much about Boris as we will about the Conservative programme for government next week.”

In a separate development, Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab accused Brussels of using the Northern Ireland dispute as a way of penalising the UK for leaving the EU.

He told The Sun: “There are some out there in the (European) Commission who see it as a lever beyond the substantive issue.

“There is no doubt there is a substantive issue about how we avoid a return to the hard border, but it has been magnified by those seeking to rely on it for political ends.”