Cabinet split over Brexit as Hammond has a dig at Boris
THE Cabinet was at odds over Brexit last night as Philip Hammond said the option of leaving the EU without a deal was ‘ridiculous’, contradicting Boris Johnson and David Davis.
The Chancellor accused some Tory MPs of undermining the Prime Minister’s negotiations by secretly wanting talks to break up without agreement so the country has a clean break from the EU.
In a dig at the Foreign Secretary and Brexit Secretary, who have claimed leaving without a deal would not be disastrous, Mr Hammond said it was not a sensible option.
On a trip to India, Mr Hammond told Bloomberg: ‘There are definitely some people on both sides who do not want a deal, they do not want to see Britain continuing to collaborate in what the Prime Minister described in a letter as a deep and special partnership with the European Union.’
He predicted with a ‘high degree of confidence’ there would be ‘tensions’ in the process, but added: ‘I’m clear the objective from the UK side is to reach a deal and what I’m hearing from my counterparts in Europe is that is their objective.
‘Those people who are hoping for no deal, I say we have to disprove their thinking by showing there is clear goodwill on the Europe side to reach a deal.’
Speaking in the Middle East, Theresa May insisted the Brexit deal could be completed within two years, but acknowledged that the full free trade deal, which would have to be signed off by every EU parliament, might take longer.
Mr Johnson, who was meeting Germany’s foreign minister Sigmar Gabriel in London, said he was confident of reach- ing an agreement with the remaining 27 EU member states, but insisted if they failed the UK would continue to thrive.
‘It is possible to do a deal that is win-win. I don’t want to be unduly pessimistic. I think we can get a deal,’ he said. ‘But if you ask me ‘If we don’t get a deal would the UK survive?’ I think we would more than survive.’
Last month, Mr Davis said that leaving without a deal was ‘ not as frightening as some people think but not as simple as some people think’.
Mr Hammond yesterday said it would not be ‘realistic’ to expect 100 per cent support on both free movement and the economy at the end of the two-year negotiations.
‘The issue for most people in the UK is they want control of their borders and they want to be outside of the EU’s structures, but within those constraints they want to go on trading as openly and freely as possible,’ he said.
‘We have to show goodwill’
JUST what do MPs on the Brexit committee hope to achieve by sneering at Theresa May’s insistence that ‘no deal for Britain is better than a bad deal’?
Can’t they see that in the poker game now begun, undermining the Prime Minister can only encourage EU negotiators to push for a harder bargain? Meanwhile, BBC interviewers bowl underarm at Remoaners such as committee chairman Hilary Benn – whose doom-laden report so little represents his own body’s members (let alone the public) that several of them refused to endorse it.
Yes, Today presenter Nick Robinson is correct to point out that with the campaign over, the BBC is free of its duty to balance each pro-Remain voice with one for Leave.
But this cannot excuse his colleague Mishal Husain, who yesterday asked the Remoaner London mayor how the Government could stop jobs leaving the capital after Brexit. She even cited the decision by Lloyd’s to open a small office in Brussels – without pointing out that the insurance giant has said London will remain its centre of operations.
Shouldn’t she have challenged Mr Khan to explain why jobs have flooded into the capital since the vote? The BBC may no longer be bound to match opposing speakers, minute-forminute. But emphatically, this does not give it the right to spread Remoaner scaremongering. SPOKEN like a true vicar’s daughter! It is ‘ridiculous’ of the National Trust, says the Prime Minister, to bow to pressure from the sponsor of its annual Easter Egg Trail by renaming it the Cadbury Egg Hunt. Shame on Cadbury and the Trust for giving marketing precedence over the most important festival of the Christian year. And well said, Mrs May.