Hammond slapped down

Grayling slaps down Eeyore over EU flights But MP drops hint that Rudd still backs him

PHILIP Hammond was slapped down by a Cabinet colleague yesterday for claiming flights could be grounded if Britain left the EU without a deal.

Chris Grayling said the Chancellor was wrong to suggest there might be ‘no air traffic’ between Britain and the EU following Brexit in March 2019.

The Transport Secretary said that travellers could ‘go ahead with confidence and book’ flights and holidays.

The rebuke is the latest setback for the beleaguered Chancellor, who has angered fellow ministers with his gloomy pronouncements on Brexit and reluctance to release cash for contingency planning.

But former education secretary Nicky Morgan hit out at his critics, saying he ‘hasn’t done anything apart from his job’.

The opponent of Brexit also hinted that Home Secretary Amber Rudd has weighed in behind the Chancellor, telling ITV she had been contacted by a senior female minister who was appalled at Mr Hammond’s treatment.

She added: ‘The majority of Tory MPs don’t want Philip Hammond to be sacked.’

Sources close to Miss Rudd declined to comment in detail but said the Home Secretary ‘doesn’t want to see briefing against Cabinet colleagues of any hue’.

Last week, former Tory chancellor Nigel Lawson called for Mr Hammond to be sacked for conduct that was ‘very close to sabotage’. Mr Hammond was also forced to make a humiliating apology to Brussels after describing the EU as ‘the enemy’ as he tried to dismiss claims he wanted to frustrate Brexit.

Theresa May’s DUP allies are reported to have raised concerns about Mr Hammond’s tactics, with one source accusing him of ‘winding people up and causing unnecessary division within the Conservative Party at a crucial time’.

Mr Hammond angered fellow ministers last week when he became the first member of the Government to raise the prospect that all flights to and from Europe could be suspended if Britain left the EU without a deal.

The Chancellor insisted he considered it only a ‘theoretical possibility’ – but his intervention led to a wave of damaging interventions.

In a thinly-veiled swipe at Mr Hammond, Mr Grayling said nobody in the aviation industry was predicting problems with maintaining existing aviation agreements after Brexit.

‘Flights will carry on. In most of the world, planes fly without open skies agreements,’ he told the BBC’s Andrew Marr show.

‘People will be able to carry on booking their holidays. Does anybody seriously think the Spanish government, which would see hotel bookings collapse in 2019, is going to intervene to stop the planes fly- ing? Of course they’re not.’ Mr Grayling said British Airways and easyJet were clear that they would ‘carry on flying’. And he pointed out that Air France and Dutch airline KLM have just spent £220million on buying a major stake in Virgin Atlantic.

‘They would not have done that if there was the remotest danger of the planes stopping flying,’ he added. Mr Grayling, one of a hand- ful of pro-Brexit cabinet ministers, yesterday insisted: ‘The Chancellor and I and the whole Cabinet are united on wanting the best possible deal for Britain.

‘We need to be upbeat about the prospects of the United Kingdom.’

He played down reports that Mr Hammond could be sacked within weeks, saying that the Chancellor would deliver next month’s budget. Two pro-Remain cabinet ministers were yesterday reported to have joined Brexiteers in suggesting Mr Hammond should be sacked in an autumn reshuffle. One said: ‘Philip is an inept political operator in quite a crowded field.’

Another senior Tory said the Chancellor ‘deserves to be kicked not only out of the cabinet but all the way down Whitehall’.

The Prime Minister’s chief-of-staff Gavin Barwell is said to be urging her to move both Mr Hammond and Mr Johnson for airing cabinet splits over Brexit.

But chief whip Gavin Williamson has warned that a major reshuffle could destabilise her fragile government.

David Davis is backing a student debt write off – and has suggested that tuition fees should be replaced with a graduate tax.

According to the Sunday Times, the Brexit Secretary believes that scrapping some of the debt would allow young people to contribute more to the economy, so the loss to the Treasury would be minimal in the long term.

Theresa May has announced a freeze in the maximum tuition fee universities can charge and a higher repayment threshold.

‘Unnecessary division’