Hammond mocks Brexiteer ‘suicide pact’
Chancellor pours scorn on leadership contenders for failed 2016 bids
PHILIP HAMMOND has ridiculed three Brexiteer Tory leadership candidates for engaging in “suicide pacts” when they each failed in their bid to be prime minister instead of Theresa May.
In a speech in Washington, the Chancellor said Michael Gove and Boris Johnson had formed an “unintended suicide pact” during the last leadership contest while Andrea Leadsom effectively “knifed herself ”. He added that there was likely to be a far “wider field” this time and joked that he may be “the only member of the 320-strong parliamentary Conservative Party” who isn’t standing in the forthcoming contest.
His comments come as a succession of leading Tories began to set out their pitches for the leadership amid growing pressure on Mrs May to resign.
Mr Johnson today says in The Daily Telegraph that once Britain leaves the European Union there will be a “pentup tide of Tory ideas” that will “flood the country”.
The national debate has been dominated by “Brexit monomania”, he says, and once Britain has left the EU “there will be an outbreak of unity, and violent agreement on the way forward”.
Highlighting his own “One Nation” credentials, Mr Johnson describes suggestions by David Lammy, a Labour MP, that he is like a Nazi as a “peculiar outburst” that has been brought on by “Brexichosis”.
It comes as Sajid Javid, the Home Secretary, today sets out his own leadership pitch by declaring that Britain “cannot afford to leave anyone behind” in a speech on tackling crime.
He will say that nobody’s future should be “predetermined by where you’re born or how you’re brought up”, a reference to his background as the son of a Pakistani immigrant bus driver.
Mr Hammond said in a speech at the British Embassy in Washington on Friday that the Tories have the “joy of a leadership contest ahead”.
He reminded his audience of the events of the 2016 Tory leadership campaign, during which Mr Gove mounted a coup against Mr Johnson.
The field was subsequently narrowed down to Mrs May and Mrs Leadsom.
Mrs Leadsom dropped out after an interview in which she appeared to suggest that being a mother made her better placed to lead.
He said: “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. 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 and Theresa May. And then Andrea Leadsom knifed herself in a private suicide pact and Theresa May inherited the prime ministership without anybody casting a single vote.”
He said that this time round there will be a “wider field”. “In fact as of now I think I may be the only member of the 320-strong parliamentary Conservative Party who isn’t standing or potentially standing,” he said. “So that’s more
joy ahead once we get the deal done.” On the prospect of a no-deal Brexit, he suggested that Britain would have left without a deal on Friday if the EU had failed to grant the UK an extension.
He said: “Things have been getting a little frazzled in Westminster just lately and to be frank I’m quite delighted to be here with you tonight and I’m more than delighted that we are not leaving the European Union tonight.
“One thing I do know: if it had gone the wrong way, I wouldn’t have been coming as Chancellor – I would have been coming as designated survivor.”
In the US, the “designated survivor” is a cabinet member who is relocated to a distant location when the president and other senior politicians are all gathered in one place, such as at the State of the Union. They are intended to guarantee the continuity of the government in the event that a catastrophic event takes place.
He also joked: “It’s actually a whole year since I’ve been here. A lot can happen
‘If it had gone the wrong way I wouldn’t have been coming as Chancellor, but as designated survivor’
in a year, but some things haven’t changed. We still haven’t left the EU. You still haven’t built the wall.”
A Treasury source said that the Chancellor’s remarks were “lighthearted” and “in jest”.
Writing in The Telegraph, Mr Johnson highlights his record as mayor of London, when he says he tackled poverty, championed female education and expanded the living wage. “It wasn’t hard-right fascism,” he says. “It was progressive One Nation Toryism.”
Setting out his agenda, Mr Johnson says that “now is the time” to focus on tackling crime, investing in the NHS and schools and “driving home the message that you need a dynamic economy to fund them all”.
He says that the Tories need to “rejuvenate our economic thinking” with “judicious tax cuts”, by slashing stamp duty and fixing the housing market.
He goes on: “Soon, if we can get Brexit over the line, we will finally be able to begin the positive narrative about Brexit Britain – the world leader in so many fields, set to overtake Germany, by 2050, as the largest and most prosperous economy in Europe. That is the opportunity. We cannot afford to fail.”