Boris Johnson escaped from the British media storm last night by travelling to Washington DC to receive the Irving Kristol Award from the pro-free market American Enterprise Institute, joining a list of previous recipients including John Howard and Benjamin Netanyahu. However, being on a different continent did not stop him from diving back into the Brexit debate as he launched a thinly-veiled attack on the PM’s Brexit plans:

“We have a choice, and I would just say to all you scholars and supporters of the American Enterprise Institute, this is a critical moment for everybody who cares about free markets, about competition, about global free trade, about all the things… that have lifted billions of people out of poverty…”

“It is difficult but the last thing we want now is for us – the Brits – having made this momentous decision to go for Brexit, to be sucked back by the tractor beam of Brussels… into the orbit, the regulatory lunar pull…

“We’ve done the right thing, but having done that, we’ve got to make sense of it and there is no point at all coming out of the EU, only to remain effectively in large measure, run by the EU. If you’re going to take back control, use it for a purpose.”

Downing Street will probably be hoping he stays over there a bit longer…