CHANCELLOR Philip Hammond has refused to back Theresa May as the best person to lead the Tories into the next General Election.
In a question and answer session with Scottish press during a trip to Dundee, the Chancellor was asked four times if May should stay on as leader in 2022 but declined to give her his support.
Reports over the weekend suggested Hammond had texted Boris Johnson on the night of the Tories' disastrous election result, offering his support for a leadership bid.
Asked if May was the "optimum" person to lead the Tories: "Well I am not going to get involved in the discussion about future Conservative party leadership politics.
“Theresa May has made it very clear that she has a job to do, I am completely behind her in doing that job she’s making an excellent job of managing the Brexit negotiations.
“We’re entering a critical phase now and all of us need to focus our attention on delivering a Brexit that works for Britain.”.
When asked if his endorsement of the Prime Minister went beyond Brexit, and if he supported her to lead the party into the next election, Hammond replied: “I’m not going to get involved in the discussion about future Conservative party leadership politics.
The Chancellor said next week’s party conference in Manchester would show united the party was and how much May was supported.
Hammond said he did “not recognise some of the material” in the newspaper reports over the weekend.
Asked again about the Prime Minister leading the Tories into the next election, Hammond added: “I’m not going to talk about future Conservative leadership, I want to talk about the job in hand.
“Theresa May is clearly the best person to lead the Conservatives, to lead the Government through this very complex process of Brexit and that’s what she’s focused on. She’s been very clear that that’s the job in hand, that’s the job that she considers she was elected to do and she’s going to get on with it.”
He added that the next election was not an issue “for today.”
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