Hammond mocks Leadsom, Gove and Boris over ‘suicide pacts’

PHILIP HAMMOND has mocked three Tory Brexiteer leadership candidates for the manner in which they failed in bids to become Prime Minister ahead of Theresa May.

The Chancellor, who joked that he was the only member of the party not running in the forthcoming leadership contest, ridiculed Michael Gove and Boris Johnson for forming an ‘unintended suicide pact’ in 2016.

And Andrea Leadsom effectively ‘knifed herself’ in a ‘ private suicide pact,’ he said during a speech in Washington. The comments come as leading Tories begin to outline their leadership bids as pressure mounts on Mrs May.

During the 2016 Tory leadership campaign after David Cameron stepped down, Mr Gove mounted a coup against Mr Johnson, whom he was expected to back. Miss Leadsom dropped out of the race following an interview in which she implied the fact she was a mother made her a better candidate than Mrs May. Mr Hammond said there would be a ‘ wider field’ during the forthcoming contest, the Daily Telegraph reported.

‘Now you may have something vaguely similar going on in the US at the moment – astonishing as it may seem we have even more candidates than you appear to have,’ he said.

‘If you remember last time this happened in 2016, Gove and Johnson knifed each other in an unintended suicide pact. Which left just Andrea Leadsom. Who? Andrea Leadsom and Theresa May in the running. And then Andrea Leadsom knifed herself in a private suicide pact and Theresa May inherited the prime ministership without anybody ever casting a single vote for anything.’

Mr Hammond suggested Britain would have left the EU last Friday without a deal if it had not been granted an extension.

‘Things have been getting a little frazzled in Westminster and I’m quite delighted to be here – and I’m more than delighted that we are not leaving the European Union tonight,’ he said.

‘If things had not gone right on Wednesday it would have been about half an hour ago that we formally left.’

He also joked about the fact that Britain remained in the EU a year since his last Washington visit. ‘It’s actually a whole year since I’ve been here due to the fact that we have a small parliamentary majority and my wings have been clipped over the last 12 months,’ he added.

‘And a lot can happen in a year, but some things haven’t changed... We still haven’t left the European Union. You still haven’t built the wall.’

▪ Almost 40 Conservative association chairmen have written to Mrs May saying they will not take part in the European elections in protest at her decision to delay Brexit. They said it would be ‘ inconsistent and unprincipled to do so’.

‘They knifed each other’