Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Hammond: EU lot are our enemy Chancellor ‘sorry’ for interview gaffe
PHILIP Hammond had to issue a grovelling apology yesterday for branding the EU the “enemy.”
The Tory Chancellor hit back at critics who claim he is too negative about Brexit and insisted the real “opponents” were in Brussels, not around the Cabinet table.
He said: “We’re all going to the same place, we all have the same agenda. The enemy, the opponents, are out there, they’re on the other side of the negotiating table.”
Soon after the Sky News interview, Mr Hammond posted on Twitter: “In an interview today I was making the point that we are united at home. I regret I used a poor choice of words.”
FOOLISH
Labour’s Peter Dowd described Mr Hammond’s language as “foolish” and said he should “refrain from acting like Basil Fawlty on holiday”.
The Chancellor has come under fire for gloomy pronouncements on Brexit. This week he also undermined Theresa May’s strategy by saying he would wait until the “very last moment” before releasing money to prepare for Brexit with no deal.
It led ex-chancellor Nigel Lawson to call for him to be fired.
Mr Hammond, in Washington for an International Monetary Fund Meeting, insisted: “I’m committed to delivering a Brexit deal that works for Britain.” Meanwhile, European Commission president Jean-claude Juncker has vowed to make the UK pay a huge Brexit divorce bill. He said: “If you are sitting in a bar and if you are ordering 28 beers and then suddenly some of your colleagues are leaving without paying, that is not feasible. They have to pay.”
His bizarre comments came as a draft EU document emerged suggesting talks on a post-brexit trade deal could open in December.