Former Cabinet minister Iain Duncan Smith today launched a withering attack on George Osborne as the Tory civil war over Brexit escalated.
The former work and pensions secretary also urged Prime Minister Theresa May not to wobble over severing ties with the EU.
Mr Duncan Smith hit out at the former chancellor after he argued last week that the country had not voted for a “hard Brexit”, stressing that the “mainstream majority in our country do not want to be governed from the extremes”.
The former Tory leader challenged Mr Osborne’s interpretation of the June 23 referendum vote, deriding his “inside knowledge of what the British people voted for”.
Criticising his ex-Cabinet colleague’s speech in Chicago on the EU in which he warned against a “hard Brexit”, Mr Duncan Smith added: “He went on as the representative of the liberal mainstream majority (and, it appears, as their spokesman) to warn Theresa May, in terms redolent of Project Fear, that she shouldn’t govern from the extremes. Humility, it seems, can take many forms — though apparently not if one is mainstream, liberal or in the majority.”
The MP for Chingford and Woodford Green, writing on the ConservativeHome website, added: “Still, it is always good to know that someone out there is sticking to the plan.”
Mr Duncan Smith clashed repeatedly in government with Mr Osborne over welfare reforms, with the latter believed to have sought at one stage to move him from the Department for Work and Pensions.
In the run up to the June 23 vote, Mr Duncan Smith quit as Work and Pensions Secretary in a row over disability cuts, a move which dealt a blow to David Cameron’s government in the midst of the EU debate.
Appealing to Mrs May to stick to her pledge that “Brexit means Brexit”, he added: “After all, the British people voted to take back control of their borders, their money and their laws; that seems pretty mainstream to me.” He also accused ex-No 10 spin chief Sir Craig Oliver of “just the faintest element of re-writing the past” in his book which accuses Mrs May of dragging her feet over backing the In campaign and undermining Mr Cameron’s attempts to negotiate a new EU deal, a claim denied by No 10.
Mr Duncan Smith’s intervention, just days before the Conservatives’ annual rally in Birmingham, highlights the deep divisions which Mrs May will have to address as she seeks to strike a Brexit deal which will be backed by her party and the country.
Meanwhile, a leading German businessman argued Brexit could leave Britain better off than its EU partners. Mathias Doepfner, chief executive of publishing giant Axel Springer, said he could see the UK adopting a “more free market-oriented model” which could be a “highly attractive” alternative to the EU economy.
He told the Financial Times that Britain was bound to experience short-term pain as a consequence of its June 23 vote to quit the EU.
Mr Doepfner added: “But in three to five years from now, my bet would be that England will be better off than continental Europe.” The UK would be free to implement a “very healthy”, “talent-oriented” immigration policy once outside the EU and remaining EU members would lose Britain’s “healthy influence”.
