Two Cabinet ministers are sympathetic to new centrist party, claims Brexit secretary's former chief of staff

Two current Cabinet ministers have expressed sympathy for a new centrist political movement, the former chief of staff to the Brexit Secretary has claimed.

James Chapman, who worked for Brexit boss David Davis following last year’s EU referendum, told BBC Radio 4 that he had been contacted by several politicians – including two Cabinet ministers – expressing sympathy for his calls for centrist MPs to form a new party.

Mr Chapman called for the new movement as ministers continued to disagree over the government’s strategy over Britain’s departure from Europe, prompting the former Daily Mail journalist to brand Brexit a “catastrophe”.

Speaking on Radio 4, he said: “Two people in the Cabinet now, a number of people who have been in Conservative cabinets before now, better cabinets I might say than the current one, and a number of shadow cabinet ministers have also been in touch.

“They’re not saying that they are going to quit their parties but they are saying they understand that there is an enormous gap in the centre now of British politics, the two main parties have been captured by the fringes.”

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Mr Chapman, also a former aide to former chancellor George Osborne, said in his view the Conservative Party’s brand had been damaged so badly that it would not be elected again, or ever again secure a majority.

“There are times in our national life when you have to put your nation before your country and what the hard Brexit plan Mrs (Theresa) May is pursuing in going to take the economy off a cliff,” he said. “It’s going to make Black Wednesday look like a picnic and when that happens the Conservative Party will never be in power again.”

But Jacob Rees-Mogg, MP for North East Somerset and a supporter of Brexit, told Radio 4 he would be “very surprised” if Mr Chapman was correct.

He said: “I think most people in the high levels of the party and across the Conservative Party and the nation have accepted the democratic result of the referendum a year ago.”

Activist and author Owen Jones has also spoken out against Mr Chapman’s suggestion, tweeting: “A new centrist party would attract a few failed politicians, win derisory support, but maybe split the vote enough to keep the Tories in.”