In a speech he is expected to deliver tonight in Tel Aviv, London Mayor Boris Johnson will poke some fun at his erstwhile Conservative Party rival, Prime Minister David Cameron.

The London mayor, whose speech has been released to the press, will recall a bacchanal-like dinner ten years ago in Tel Aviv: “I have no idea… whether any animals were involved but all I can say is that whatever took place that evening, it was entirely kosher,” he is due to say.

The speech, at an event honouring the Balfour Declaration, will cap off a frenzied 15-hour day in which Mr Johnson is meeting his Tel Aviv counterpart, Mayor Ron Huldai, Israel’s Interior Minister, Silvan Shalom, and former president Shimon Peres.

Meeting Mr Shalom at the residence of British Ambassador, David Quarry, Mr Johnson waded fearlessly into several of the controversies facing the Israeli government.

“I think a boycott is crazy,” he said, addressing Israeli fears about advances made by the BDS movement on British university campuses, and dismissing it as a matter of interest only to “a few lefty academics”.

“Of all the countries in the Middle East why would you boycott the most vibrant, the only flourishing economy?”

Then, glancing around and seeing no EU flag planted by the UK and Israeli standards, Mr Johnson added “Are you boycotting the EU flag?”

In the past week, Israel has been engaged in an all-too-public tussle with the EU following a decision to identify West Bank products as “Made in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.”