Philip Hammond has sent a sharp message to the Foreign Secretary, who accused him of being the 'enemy of Brexit', claiming he is in fact the 'champion of prosperity'
PHILIP Hammond has insisted he is not the “enemy of Brexit” in a bitter public spat with Boris Johnson.
Two weeks after the Foreign Secretary was secretly taped accusing the Chancellor of frustrating our EU exit, Mr Hammond openly slapped him down to say he was instead the “champion of prosperity”.
In his annual Mansion House speech to the City, Mr Hammond said “we need to forge a new relationship with our European neighbours that protects” the UK’s status a global financial powerhouse.
He said he was seeking to defend “business relationships that have been painstakingly built over decades” and maintain “low friction borders and open markets”.
And taking aim at his outspoken Cabinet colleague, Mr Hammond said: “That does not make the Treasury, on my watch, ‘the enemy of Brexit’; rather, it makes it the champion of prosperity for the British people outside the EU, but working and trading closely with it.”
Earlier this month Mr Johnson launched a scathing attack on Mr Hammond, accusing him of blocking Brexit and said that his “wet” Treasury is “the heart of Remain”.
Speaking to Tory donors he claimed the Treasury’s Brexit economic doom-mongering as “mumbo jumbo”, adding that they must take the fight “to the enemy”.
