What is Boris Johnson up to by suggesting some MPs are ‘collaborating’ with foreigners?

Invoking the language of the Second World War appears to be the work of the PM’s chief of staff Dominic Cummings, writes John Rentoul

The prime minister has criticised ‘Brexit-blocking’ MPs for speaking to EU leaders (Getty)

The prime minister tangled with Nick Robinson on the Today programme yesterday. Robinson said he had used provocative language such as “collaborators”. Boris Johnson said: “I didn’t actually say collaborators – go back over the quotation.”

The BBC presenter said: “You said collaboration.” To which the prime minister replied: “Correct.” What he had actually said, on 14 August, was: “There’s a terrible kind of collaboration as it were, going on between people who think they can block Brexit in parliament and our European friends.”

It was an inflammatory word, invoking the language of the Second World War, when it was used to describe those people in countries occupied by the Nazis who cooperated with the enemy.