Boris Johnson warns Rishi Sunak cutting HS2 would be ‘utter madness’

Cancelling HS2 north of Birmingham would be “utter madness” and private firms should be brought in to pay for it, Boris Johnson has warned Rishi Sunak as the Prime Minister prepares for a chaotic Conservative party conference.

Would-be future Tory leaders are expected to set out their stall to the party faithful at the annual gathering that begins on Sunday.

Two former prime ministers, Liz Truss and Theresa May, will both give speeches as the party rows over issues such as tax and immigration.

And a number of key announcements which were due to be made at the conference in Manchester were leaked in advance despite Mr Sunak’s emphasis on message discipline.

The Prime Minister’s team has been pleased with events of recent weeks, with new policies on net zero thought have proven popular with the public while Labour has been involved in a number of noisy rows.

But in his most active intervention in domestic politics since quitting the House of Commons, Mr Johnson hit out at Mr Sunak for considering curtailing the route of the High Speed 2 line.

He wrote in the Daily Mail: “If we delay or cut the northern legs, if we truncate HS2 – then we are betraying the north of the country and the whole agenda of levelling up.” The ex-Prime Minister added: “Cancel HS2? Cut off the northern legs? We must be out of our minds.”

Mr Johnson claimed that “in the period since both the UK and China launched new programmes of high-speed rail, the Chinese have built 25,000 miles of high-speed railway line, and we have built zero miles of completed line”.

He proposed asking businesses to invest in the line, as has been done with other major infrastructure schemes, rather than having the Government simply fund the whole project.

Mr Sunak is understood to be weighing up the possibility of announcing that he is scrapping or delaying HS2 between Birmingham and Manchester, with potential investment in links within the North of England to compensate.

The policy is one of several to have been leaked before it was ready to be announced, in this case because officials accidentally showed documents with the plans to photographers in Downing Street.

Other leaks include the U-turn on net zero targets announced last week, a “plan for motorists” which the Prime Minister was due to unveil this weekend and a mooted crackdown on smoking and disposable vapes.

The conference running between Sunday and Wednesday will include fringe events held by a number of different pressure groups within the Conservative party, with ministers and senior backbenchers who are seen as potential future leaders seeking to build their support base.

Groups hosting major events include the right-wing populist New Conservatives, the Conservative Growth Group which lobbies for free-market policies, and the Conservative Democratic Organisation, pushing to boost the rights of grassroots members.

Suella Braverman, Kemi Badenoch, James Cleverly, Dame Priti Patel and other possible leadership contenders are all addressing activists at fringe meetings over the course of the conference.