Mr Duncan Smith was one of six cabinet ministers to back Brexit and David Cameron’s allies were quick to suggest that his resignation was more about the referendum than about benefits.
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“I am resigning because I want my government to think again about this (the changes to disability benefits announced in the Budget this week) and get back to that position, I believe, which is about being a one nation”, he said on the show. “Now, I want to do that and I want my party to do that”. I felt semi-detached, isolated in a sense…
“They are not defensible in the way they were placed within a budget that benefits higher-earning taxpayers”, said Duncan Smith, who led the Conservatives in opposition between 2001 and 2003 and had been in his post since 2010. Meanwhile, ministers at his old department clashed openly after Baroness Altmann accused him of causing “maximum damage” in order to get Britain out of the EU.
It is not clear whether the briefing was an abortive effort to persuade Mr Duncan Smith to stay, but allies pointed out that he still faced finding equivalent savings from working age benefits.
The former Tory leader, who made his comments in an emotional 20-minute TV appearance, repeatedly plunged the knife into David Cameron and George Osborne. They also said that he had made a decision to go when he was told by Cameron on Friday that, although the policy announced in the budget would not be implemented in that form, he would still have to find an equivalent amount from the disability budget.
Duncan Smith speaking to Andrew Marr on Sunday.
Minister for the disabled Justin Tomlinson and employment minister Priti Patel have also issued statements praising Mr Duncan Smith.
“If this is attempted to be brushed under the carpet in any way, then I’d say absolutely not, his chances are over”, she told BBC Television’s “Sunday Politics” program.
Osborne’s primary economic policy has been to reduce Britain’s deficit through a cocktail of spending cuts and tax increases, but Duncan Smith’s resignation could blow a hole in his cost-cutting plans.
Former Welsh Secretary Mr Crabb said he shared numerous “instincts and values” of Mr Duncan Smith and gave a strong defence of the UK Government’s welfare reform programme.
‘We were to be ourselves, our judgement backed as we worked as a team both for DWP and the government’.
Energy Secretary Amber Rudd told Murnaghan on Sky News that she does “respect” Mr Duncan Smith but to “suddenly launch this bombshell on the rest of us in a way that is hard for us all to understand is just really disappointing”. But, the broader question at hand is whether the British Prime Minister can reign over a cabinet and more than half of his MPs that do not support remaining in the EU.
She added: “He remains a compassionate Conservative”.
“The PIP process, the whole assessment process, just doesn’t work for so many groups of ill and disabled people, so tinkering with two tiny little points frankly isn’t good enough”. “They’re not facing a united Labour Party”.
Yet this dispute lays bare the fundamental rows and gory dislikes ripping apart a Conservative Government disintegrating before our very eyes.
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They found that annual growth within the European Union would be 2.3 per cent to the end of the decade, compared to an average of 1.5 per cent if the United Kingdom had a free trade agreement with the European Union, or 0.9 per cent if it operated under the rules of the World Trade Organisation.
