Boris accuses Chancellor Hammond of attempting to block Brexit

THE Cabinet was in open warfare last night after Boris Johnson accused the Chancellor of trying to block Brexit.

In an extraordinary intervention, the Foreign Secretary branded Philip Hammond’s Treasury ‘the heart of Remain’.

The comments will pile pressure on the Prime Minister to sack her Chancellor.

Mr Johnson also warned that the Government was in danger of delivering a Brexit betrayal and dismissed Treasury warnings about the economic impact of leaving as ‘mumbo jumbo’.

And, in a swipe at Theresa May, he suggested Donald Trump would make a better job of negotiating Brexit, saying: ‘He’d go in bloody hard… There’d be all sorts of breakdowns, all sorts of chaos. Everyone would think he’d gone mad. But actually you might get somewhere.’

The Foreign Secretary also suggested he would resign if Mrs May agreed to a final deal that left the UK shackled to Brussels. ‘I will be prepared to compromise over time, but I will not compromise over the destination,’ he said.

Two Cabinet sources yesterday told the Daily Mail that Mr Hammond was undermining the UK’s position by stalling on preparations for a no-deal Brexit.

One senior Eurosceptic said: ‘Everything he does is designed to damage Brexit. Every morning he gets up and thinks about how he can delay it or stop it.’

Mr Johnson’s comments last

‘The heart of Remain’

night threatened to overshadow Mrs May’s attendance at the G7 summit in Canada. They emerged as she was in the air, and there was no immediate response from her closest aides.

It came on a day of heightened tensions over Brexit, pushing the Government to the brink of chaos. In other developments:

Mrs May was forced to make Brexit concessions to David Davis after he threatened to resign over plans which critics fear could keep Britain in the EU by the back door;

Pro-Brussels MPs warned they could still join forces with Labour next week in a bid to keep Britain in the customs union;

Mr Johnson breached protocol by revealing that Mrs May will use the G7 summit to unveil plans for a new ‘rapid response unit’ to counter Russian cyber-attacks and assassinations;

The Foreign Secretary warned that China would ‘try and stiff us’ in trade talks.

Whitehall insiders acknowledged that the Government was facing turmoil as a result of Brexit. One said: ‘It is absolute chaos.’

International Trade Secretary Liam Fox said Brexit had turned into a ‘complex and sometimes turbulent episode in this country’s history’. Mr Johnson’s comments, which were secretly recorded at a private dinner for Tory donors, blew the lid off the toxic row between Cabinet Brexiteers and the Chancellor.

A recording of Tuesday night’s dinner, obtained by BuzzFeed, reveals that Mr Johnson believes Brexit is in peril.

He told the Conservative Way Forward group there was now a high chance that Mrs May would cross her own Brexit red lines and leave the UK ‘locked in orbit around the EU, in the customs union and to a large extent still in the single market.’ He said the outcome was being pushed by the Treasury, which was ‘basically the heart of Remain’.

Mr Johnson warned that ministers were ‘allowing the tail to wag the dog’ over the issue of the Northern Ireland border that is threatening to keep Britain shackled to the customs union.

He acknowledged that Brexit would mean ‘some bumps in the road’ for the economy. But he said prophecies of doom in the Treasury and Whitehall were overblown. ‘What they don’t want is friction at the borders,’ he said.

‘They don’t want any disruption of the economy. So they’re sacrificing all the medium and longterm gains out of fear of shortterm disruption. He added: ‘They’re terrified of this nonsense. It’s mumbo jumbo.’

Mr Johnson hinted that Mrs May was poised to take a tougher stance in negotiations which could lead to a temporary ‘meltdown’ in talks. ‘I think Theresa is going to go into a phase where we are much more combative with Brussels,’ he said. ‘You’ve got to face the fact there may now be a meltdown. OK? I don’t want anybody to panic during the meltdown. No bloody panic. It’s going to be all right in the end.’

Eurosceptic MPs last night backed Mr Johnson.

Former Brexit minister David Jones said: ‘Once you strip away the Boris style, what you’re left with is some pretty sensible points.’ Fellow Tory Andrew Bridgen said: ‘Boris is rightly articulating the fears of many of us who support leaving the EU.’

The Treasury flatly denied the Chancellor was trying to sabotage Brexit.

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