Ben Rhodes said the controversial phrase, which backfired on the Remain campaign, was fed to the US President by Number 10 before his press conference
BARACK Obama’s incendiary threat that Brexit Britain would be at the “back of the queue” was fed to him by David Cameron, an ex-White House aide has confessed.
In 2016 Downing Street angrily denied they had a hand in the phrase after the US President’s explosive intervention sparked uproar from Leave supporters at the height of the referendum.
But there was intense speculation at the time that the remark may have been scripted by Number 10, because the word “queue” is rarely used by Americans, who tend to prefer the phrase “back of the line”.
Now Mr Obama’s former speechwriter Ben Rhodes has revealed that the comment came up during a discussion between the US and UK sides about the implications of Brexit before Mr Obama spoke out.
And he admitted that Mr Cameron suggested the president should repeat it in public.
His startling revelation left Mr Cameron’s former spin doctor red faced after Sir Craig Oliver wrote in his book about Brexit that the claims the government had colluded with the Americans over the words were “nonsense.”
Last night he insisted: “As I said at the time, the President was clear in his own mind and spoke for himself.
"We were surprised when he used the phrase.”
But last night Nigel Farage branded Mr Cameron’s behaviour “shameful”
The Brexiteer boss added: “Thank God he and Osborne have gone.”
Mr Rhodes told the BBC: “We had come here to try to help the Remain campaign and we had a meeting with David Cameron and his team and we were all kind of in violent agreement about the negative consequences of Brexit.
“And in talking about the press conference they were going to hold together - Cameron and Obama - we were discussing the arguments for the Brexit campaign.
“And some of the arguments were based on the notion that the United States could just negotiate its own free trade agreement with the UK quickly and we were all agreeing that that was unlikely to happen.
“And as Obama was saying that, somebody on the British side said: ‘We’d end up being at the back of the queue,’ and everybody laughed and Obama said ‘That is exactly right’.
“Then he was asked: ‘It would be good if you could repeat that point in the press conference’, and of course he did.”
