March of the Mogg as he targets May

Brexiteer challenger casts down gauntlet

TORY Brexit cheerleader Jacob Rees-Mogg last night warned Theresa May she would be making a ‘grave error’ if she failed to deliver the ‘hard Brexit’ he favours.

And he failed to kill off claims that he could replace her in No10 if she defies his hardline stance by saying he was ‘flattered’ by claims he had overtaken Boris Johnson as the leadership frontrunner.

He also compared himself to Michael Heseltine, who famously denied planning to challenge Margaret Thatcher – before doing precisely that.

According to bookmakers, City tycoon and devout Catholic Mr Rees-Mogg is strong favourite to be the next Tory leader, with his reputation enhanced by his cool response to protesters who disgovernment. rupted his speech in Bristol on Friday. In a wide-ranging interview with The Mail on Sunday on the eve of this week’s Cabinet showdown on Britain’s trading status when we leave the EU, Mr Rees-Mogg:

Warned Mrs May against a Brexit ‘fudge’, saying she must follow Mrs Thatcher’s dictum of avoiding ‘middle, muddle, fiddle, fuddle’;

Suggested it was pro ‘soft Brexit’ Chancellor Philip Hammond – not him – who was undermining Mrs May;

Urged her to resist pressure from Mr Hammond to retain partial access to the EU Customs Union;

Hit back at a jibe by a Tory foe that he is ‘a barmaid’s idea of a gentleman’.

Mr Rees-Mogg’s growing power as leader of the hard-line group of Brexit Tory MPs, the European Research Group, has caused alarm among ‘soft Brexit’ Tories.

Former Minister Anna Soubry has said she will quit the party if Mr Rees-Mogg, who opposes abortion, including in rape cases, and also opposed gay marriage, becomes leader.

A senior Minister said last night: ‘Anna is not alone. Many of us would never support a Rees-Mogg His views are from the Ark and would make Jeremy Corbyn in No10 a certainty.’

Among the Conservatives appalled by the growing influence in Downing Street of the so-called ‘Mogg-mentum’ phenomenon is Mr Hammond. One ally of the Chancellor said: ‘The PM is so weak, it’s as if Rees-Mogg is the de facto PM.’

Pressed to respond by this newspaper, Mr Rees-Mogg said: ‘It’s preposterous. I wouldn’t dream of ordering the Prime Minister.’ He was simply trying to help ‘shape Brexit’ and ‘completely entitled to express my opinion’. But he made it clear Mrs May faces trouble if reports she plans to back calls by Mr Hammond for the UK to retain partial access to the Customs Union after Brexit are true.

‘It is not consistent with the Prime Minister’s avowed policy, so I don’t expect it to happen,’ he said. ‘It would be a grave error as it would fail to get the benefits of Brexit. Middle, muddle, fiddle, fuddle as Margaret Thatcher used to say.’

Was he suggesting Mrs May was finished if she didn’t do what he wanted? ‘Of course I’m not. She has my unconditional support. Leadership elections tend to do the party – and the country – harm.’

How did he feel about overtaking Boris in the leadership stakes? ‘Very flattering. I know this is the Michael Heseltine formula but I just can’t see the circumstances.’

Lord Heseltine famously used the same mantra when asked if he planned to oust Mrs Thatcher. It turned out he was fibbing. He brought her down in 1990, but was beaten to No10 by John Major.

Mr Rees-Mogg is also equivocal when asked why he has never said he does not want to be leader. ‘Want is the wrong word. As you see in Mrs May it is a duty rather than a want.’ His reply leaves open the prospect that if fellow Tory MPs ask him to be leader, he will regard it as his ‘duty’ to accept.

But he leaves no room for doubt that the political loathing between him and Mr Hammond is mutual and launched a new attack on the Chancellor over claims that the Treasury tried to ‘fiddle the figures’ in a leaked Brexit report that forecast dire economic consequences for leaving the EU.

Asked if he blamed Mr Hammond, he said: ‘Either he is not in control of his department or he is allowing his department to do this. He needs to answer the questions as to what the Treasury is up to.’

‘Completely entitled to express my opinion’ ‘I am supporting her, others may not be’

Mr Rees-Mogg said his comments were ‘more in response to what is going on from the Treasury than [me] trying to push the Prime Minister in any direction. I am supporting her. Others may not be.’

Either Mr Hammond was in breach of his duty of ‘collective responsibility’ or he was ‘allowing his department to freelance’. Neither was acceptable.

Mr Rees-Mogg said he ‘could not be more different to Donald Trump’, but said that in Britain, as in the US, there was a feeling that the ‘Establishment’ had not given ordinary people what they wanted.

Mr Rees-Mogg dismissed writer and ex-Tory MP Matthew Parris’s description of him as ‘a barmaid’s idea of a gentleman,’ saying: ‘I take it as a compliment.’