Hammond raises further doubts about May's future as Tory leader

Philip Hammond, the UK chancellor, has raised further doubts about Theresa May’s future by failing to support her plans to fight the next election as Conservative leader, describing her prospects post-Brexit as “not an issue for today”.

The Sunday Times reported at the weekend that Hammond, Boris Johnson, David Davis and Amber Rudd were involved in feverish plotting to replace May immediately after her snap election gamble in June failed to deliver the promised Tory majority.

When asked repeatedly whether he believed May should lead the party into the next election, Hammond insisted the issue was separate from the immediate question of leading the UK through the Brexit talks.

Speaking to reporters in Dundee, where he visited a new V&A-sponsored design museum, the chancellor was asked who the “optimum person” was to lead the Tories into the next election. He responded: “Well, I’m not going to get involved in the discussion about future Conservative party leadership politics.

“Theresa May has made it very clear that she has a job to do; I’m completely behind her in doing that job. I think she’s making an excellent job of managing the Brexit negotiations. We’re entering a critical phase now and all of us need to focus our attention on delivering a Brexit that works for Britain.”

Hammond was asked several times again whether or not he backed May, who told reporters on her tour of Japan she expected to lead the Conservatives into the next election. He said: “I’m not going to get into a conversation about potential future leadership discussions in the Conservative party. I think you will see next week at our party conference that the party is clear and unified behind Theresa May, delivering us a Brexit that works for Britain.”

He repeated: “These are not issues for today. We’re focused entirely on delivering a Brexit that works for Britain.”

Hammond refused to deny a specific allegation in the Sunday Times that he texted Johnson soon after it became clear that May’s snap election gamble in June had failed, offering to back Johnson as leader.

“Look, there was an awful lot of communication going during the early hours of that morning, texting, telephone calling between all sorts of colleagues,” Hammond said.

“I don’t recognise some of the material I have seen in the Sunday papers. What I do know is that the most important conversation I had on that night was with Theresa May and she told us that she had decided to seek to form a government; she asked me to serve in it and I committed to do (that) and back her.”

Hammond made the appearance in Scotland after days of negative briefing and counter-briefing between the chancellor’s allies and friends of Johnson, the foreign secretary, over the future of Brexit, showing relations between the pair have soured since election night.

Hammond has been pushing for a longer transitional period and softer Brexit to cushion businesses from the impact of leaving, while Johnson has argued for a cleaner break with the EU and an absolute maximum of two years of transition.

Further tensions erupted after Johnson’s allies claimed he was responsible for steering May away from a Norway-style soft Brexit in her Florence speech on Friday and seeing off Hammond’s demands for a longer transition. But Johnson’s attempt to cast himself as the saviour of a proper Brexit has been dismissed by David Davis, the Brexit secretary, and Hammond said on Monday that he “was entirely in accord” with May’s proposal for a transition period for leaving the EU of around two years. That transition period would have to end well before the next general election, timed for 2022, for political reasons, he added.

Johnson’s actions over the past few weeks, including his publication of his own 4,000-word personal blueprint for leaving the EU in the Telegraph, has been seen as a sign he is trying to goad May into sacking him over Brexit.

The foreign secretary kept largely to the No 10 script on Monday as he toured eastern European countries but he still flexed his political muscles on the issue of Brexit as he announced his visit to the Czech Republic was a “mission to explain the Florence speech and what it means for our determination to get on with negotiations over Brexit”.

In a short video clip, he said: “We are offering a great deal on citizens, a great deal on money and an unconditional commitment to the defence of Europe. Let’s hope we can move this thing forward and get these negotiations going.”

He also told reporters that the “ball is in the [EU’s] court” after May’s speech. Some senior Tories on the centrist wing of the party believe Johnson and other leading Brexit supporters are setting themselves up for a clash with the EU and are preparing to push for May to walk away with no deal if Brussels wants more than the prime minister offered last week.

Several leading eurosceptics, including former cabinet minister John Redwood, have been talking increasingly about the need to start preparing seriously for a “no-deal” Brexit, although Johnson insisted on Monday that a trade agreement could “comfortably” be done by March 2019.

On the other side, Nicky Morgan, the former cabinet minister fighting against a hard Brexit, wrote in ConservativeHome on Monday in praise of May’s speech as a necessary move towards compromise.

“There was always going to be a time when the most-pro Brexit voices would be ready to shout ‘betrayal’. They’ve been waiting for the time to accuse those leading the UK’s negotiations of not fulfilling the referendum vote,” she said.

“It would be easy to say “well let’s leave anyway, and all will be well”, but it would be much harder to sell the inevitable chaos of empty shelves, slow passport approvals and visas refusals to the British public.

“Rather than shout betrayal, or look around for people and systems to blame, those who see an establishment plot to thwart Brexit in every dark shadow should ask themselves what practical things they’ve been doing in the past 15 months to prepare for Brexit. Where were their position papers?”