Theresa May urged to sack Philip Hammond after his comments on a No Deal Brexit
Tory MPs said Sajid Javid should replace the Chancellor after he countered positive talk by warning of “large fiscal consequences”
THERESA May was last night urged to sack Philip Hammond for undermining no deal Brexit planning - as senior Tories branded him the “Gerald Ratner of British politics”.
Furious Tory MPs called on the PM to replace the doom-monger Chancellor with Sajid Javid.
The fresh anger against Mr Hammond comes after he published a letter warning of “large fiscal consequences” of leaving the EU without a deal on the same day as Brexit chief Dominic Raab’s presented the positives of no deal.
Ex-Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith compared the Chancellor’s constant Brexit doom to Mr Ratner, the former millionaire whose jewellery chain collapsed after famously describing his products as “total crap”.
He told The Sun: “Any business will tell you if you’re in a position of authority and you spend your whole time telling everybody how rotten things are, then you will deliver a rotten outcome.
“So Philip Hammond has become the Gerald Ratner of politics because he has no faith in his country or in his country’s businesses or the people who live in his country and all he can see around him is disaster.”
Tory MP Nadine Dorries went a step further - calling on the PM to sack Mr Hammond.
She fumed: “Philip Hammond has to go - he’s like a ball and chain around the Prime Minister’s leg and he’s a ball and chain on Brexit.
“Everything Philip Hammond does is to prevent or stop Brexit.
The Sun Says
THE Government doesn’t need another angry Remainer rebel on its back benches.
So the calls to fire Philip Hammond over his disgraceful undermining of the Brexit Secretary are short-sighted.
But this Chancellor has shown none of the energy, optimism or vision that job needs as we leave the EU. He has been engulfed by Treasury defeatism.
Other Cabinet figures know that post-Brexit we will have the economic tools to thrive. If Mr Hammond wants to show he understands that too, and keep his job after next March, he should draw up a tax-cutting Budget now.
Not just moan that the sky is falling in.
“We need an upbeat, outward looking, asporicational chancellor who wants to embrace Brexit and all it has to offer, not someone who is permanently trying to stop it.
“I think Sajid Javid would be a great Chancellor - I think he’s born to be Chancellor.”
Another senior Tory said: “There isn’t a single person now in politics who in any way can understand why he’s still there because he’s undermined the Prime Minister on every single turn.
“Everyone is astonished that he still exists, he still stays in that position and he seems to be taking a completely different line from her on every given occasion.”
No10 also laid bare its frustration at Mr Hammond’s failure to get clearance from the Prime Minister before publishing the letter.
A Downing Street source dismissed the analysis as “preliminary and very much a work in progress,” adding: “As we have always said, Britain will ultimately succeed, no matter what our particular relationship is with the EU.”
But the PM’s deputy David Lidington defended the Chancellor’s divisive intervention.
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Mr Lidington claimed Mr Hammond was only trying to be punctual in replying to MPs.
And he insisted it was a coincidence that the Chancellor’s letter - which warned a no deal Brexit could wipe ten per cent off Britain’s national income - was sent on the same day as Mr Raab’s long-awaited presentation of Britain’s contingency planning designed to kill off “scare stories”.
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