PM’s aides ‘have questions to answer over Chequers’
UNELECTED Government advisers came under attack yesterday from both sides of the Brexit debate after the rebuff of Theresa May’s plans.
Critics asked why the PM seemed to have been mistakenly reassured that her EU counterparts would give her Chequers deal a warm reception.
Instead the plan was rejected and Mrs May was subjected to humiliating treatment.
Particular fury was directed yesterday at Olly Robbins, her top Brexit adviser.
Mrs May hired the Europhile civil servant last year from the Department for Exiting the EU in what was seen as a move by Number 10 to take more control over the Brexit talks from then Secretary of State David Davis.
Mr Robbins, 43, reportedly assured the PM he was successfully selling her Chequers plan, on which he was her key adviser, to EU leaders and that they saw it as a “game-changer”. Mrs May’s “ambush” in Salzburg on Thursday was blamed on his misreading of the situation.
Pro-Brexit Tory MP Iain Duncan Smith said there were “question marks” over how the Chequers plan had got so far.
He stopped short of demanding Mr Robbins’ resignation but Downing Street needed to consider why advisers had blundered.
“This advice has been off from the word go,” said the former Tory leader. “From the word go there have been question marks over why we were pursuing this when it’s quite clear the EU couldn’t accept it. I’m genuinely concerned Chequers was designed by people who were telling her [Theresa May] this was acceptable to the EU and ‘don’t worry we will get there’.
“Him [Olly Robbins] and the whole team need to look at this – why we were on Chequers when Chequers so obviously wasn’t going to cut the mustard.”
Remain campaigner Gina Miller agreed there was “acrimony and frustration” that the EU had not shifted its stance.
But she added: “They have made it very clear where they stand and the UK has been so focused on its infighting that they have not been listening.
“How can she [the PM] have been so badly advised? It stinks of incompetence.”
Supporters of Mr Robbins, however, hit back saying he had warned about possible rejection in Salzburg but had been ignored by the PM’s team.