The chancellor Philip Hammond said on Sunday a second referendum “deserves to be considered,” and said, replacing Theresa May will not “solve the problem.”
Speaking on Sky’s Sophie Ridge on Sunday, Hammond was critical over MPs who are involved in wanting to topple May, he called them “self-indulgent.”
Hammond said, “To be talking about changing the players on the board frankly is self-indulgent at this time.”
Hammond acknowledged “people are very frustrated, and people are desperate to find a way forward in the just over two weeks that we’ve got to resolve this issue”.
“This is not about the Prime Minister or any other individual, this is about the future of our country.
“Changing prime minister wouldn’t help us, changing the party in government wouldn’t help us, we’ve got to address the question of what type of Brexit is acceptable to Parliament, what type of way forward Parliament can agree on so that we can avoid what would be an economic catastrophe of a no-deal exit and also what would be a very big challenge to confidence in our political system if we didn’t exit at all.”
Hammond said Parliament will have the opportunity this week to hold indicative votes over May’s proposed Brexit deal this week.
He said, “One way or another Parliament is going to have the opportunity this week to decide what it is in favour of, and I hope that it will take that opportunity, if it can’t get behind the prime minister’s deal, to say clearly and unambiguously what it can get behind.”
Former Conservative leader, Iain Duncan Smith MP angrily spoke out against cabinet ministers allegedly plotting to oust May.
Smith told the BBC One’s Andrew Marr show, “I think that’s appalling, I think they should be censured and some of them should be sacked.”
Smith added, “If there is to be a leadership change that leadership change has to be done through the correct process with the membership out there deciding who will be their leader, not some ghastly five or six man and woman cabal that actually decides things internally.”
However, Smith also said this last week in politics has been “as close to a national humiliation as I think I’ve seen.”
Should there be a leadership election this would cause “complete chaos.”
He told Marr, “I think round the country, in the Conservative Party, and outside the Conservative Party there will be real disgust at the behaviour of some of our cabinet ministers who are not fit for their positions if they behave like this.
“They should be apologising, and they should shut up for God’s sake.”
Smith urged Brexiteers to keep their options open saying, “I’m going to keep, and I recommend my colleagues do, keep their options open on this because we don’t know what’s happening this week, we’ve no idea what the alternatives are and whether people vote for this or not depends hugely on whether we are able to leave with no-deal or not or whether there is a change to this.”
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