‘Petty plot’ by the Brexiteers to hammer Hammond

FORMER Chancellor Norman Lamont was accused yesterday of attacking Philip Hammond’s Budget because of the Chancellor’s opposition to a ‘hard Brexit’.

Pro-EU former Tory Minister Anna Soubry called leading Brexiteer Lamont ‘petty’ after he said Mr Hammond’s decision to raise National Insurance for the self-employed, including white van drivers, was a ‘rookie error’.

Ms Soubry claimed many of the attacks on Mr Hammond were being driven by advocates of a hard Brexit who feared he was acting as a block in Cabinet against their agenda. Criticism of the Chancellor was led last week by former Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith, a full-blooded Brexiteer.

Ms Soubry told The Mail on Sunday: ‘It is clear to me that some of the Brexit brigade are trying to pick off Mr Hammond over this issue because he has left no doubt he is opposed to walking away from the EU with no deal.

‘He is one of the few voices of reason in the Cabinet and with good reason because we are sailing in dangerous waters. He knows that leaving without a trade agreement would be an economic typhoon.

‘People like Lord Lamont who want Brexit at any cost, regardless of the damage it does to our country, are using this to try to damage Mr Hammond. It is petty in the extreme.’

Meanwhile former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has offered his advice to Mr Hammond as he battles the Budget backlash over National Insurance rises – blame it all on David Cameron. ‘The honest thing to do for Hammond, and what I suspect he would like to do, is to dump on his predecessors and say Osborne and Cameron were wrong,’ said Mr Clegg, arguing the Chancellor was constrained by Mr Cameron and George Osborne’s election manifesto ruling out tax rises.

‘In what normal world does a Government impose a fatwa in all circumstances on adjusting taxes in anticipation of economic events which you cannot anticipate? What he has ended up with, at great cost to him, is a saving that is minuscule in public expenditure terms.’