Gauke: No Brexit plot to gag Hammond
THERE is no “plot to gag” Cabinet members who want a softer Brexit, Justice Secretary David Gauke has insisted.
The remarks came after it emerged the three leading Cabinet Brexiteers will all give keynote speeches on the UK’s EU withdrawal stance but Chancellor Philip Hammond will not take part in the co-ordinated bid to set out the Government’s position.
Gauke told ITV’s Peston on Sunday: “He is not part of the set of speeches that have been outlined today but that doesn’t mean that the Chancellor is not expressing his views both internally in the Cabinet conversations, but also externally. So, I don’t think that there really is anything in this, that this is somehow any kind of plot to gag a particular faction of ministers.
“I don’t think that’s a fair characterisation at all.”
In a bid to regain the initiative on Brexit after a rocky few weeks during which Cabinet tensions came to the surface, Prime Minister Theresa May is set to make two keynote addresses, one in Germany on Saturday and another in around three weeks’ time.
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, Brexit Secretary David Davis, and International Trade Secretary Liam Fox will also deliver speeches – but the only minister who backed Remain taking part in the project is Cabinet Office Minister David Lidington.