After Mordaunt usurped Truss to follow Rishi Sunak in Wednesday’s first vote for Tory MPs, allies of the foreign secretary sought to cast doubt on the trade secretary’s record on Brexit. David Frost, who led the UK’s negotiations with the EU, said that when Mordant was his deputy, she was “not fully in charge or always visible” during talks with Brussels. “To be honest, I’m very surprised that he’s where he is in this race,” he told TalkTV on Thursday. “She was my deputy – figuratively more than actually – in the Brexit talks last year. “I’m sorry to say this, he didn’t get the necessary details in the negotiations last year. She wouldn’t always give tough messages to the EU when necessary and I’m afraid she wasn’t fully accountable or always visible. Sometimes I didn’t even know where it was. “I’m afraid it became such a problem that after six months I had to ask the prime minister to move on and find someone else to support me. Based on what I saw, I would have serious reservations.” Simon Clarke, the chief secretary to the Treasury and also a Truss supporter, said Frost’s warning was “very serious”. “Conservatives – and more importantly our country – need a leader who is tried and tested,” he added. Another unnamed Truss supporter said overnight it was the wrong time to install a prime minister who needed “stabilisers”. British public ‘fed up’ with broken promises, says Penny Mordaunt – video Mordaunt, who backed Brexit before the 2016 referendum, sought to build on those credentials as part of the contest, telling supporters at her campaign launch on Wednesday that she wanted to unleash the full potential of a “Brexit dividend ». Truss is a Brexit convert who was part of George Osborne’s Finance team during the Remain campaign accused of negotiating “project fear”. Truss’ supporters were rattled on Wednesday night by Mordant who came second with 67 votes, while the foreign secretary received 50. Sunak was in first place with 88 votes. Mordaunt, who has had little interaction with the EU during her ministerial career, is not well known in Brussels. Those who have followed her career are not thrilled with her move to No 10. “We are prepared [ourselves]” said an EU official. “No because she would be a tough conversationalist. Because her reputation is that she is completely incompetent. And that won’t help.” The former defense secretary rose to prominence in the 2016 EU referendum campaign when she repeatedly made false claims that the UK could not veto Turkey’s EU membership. She told LBC this week that she stood by those comments . European diplomats are more familiar with other contenders, such as Truss, who led the push for a unilateral rewrite of the Northern Ireland protocol, a step that has brought EU-UK relations to a new low. Some believe the current frontrunner, Rishi Sunak, could take a more pragmatic approach to the protocol, given the potential damage a trade war with the EU would do to the UK’s already weak economy. But few see any prospect of improved EU-UK relations. “We have the hope that it might improve one day, but we don’t see in any of the candidates a radical change,” said a senior EU diplomat. “Even if the style is different, the substance will not be very different.” Meanwhile, a battle is under way between the camps of the remain candidates to rally the supporters of those who left: Jeremy Hunt supported Sunak but Nahim Zahawi remained silent. Subscribe to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7am. BST Truss launched her leadership campaign with a rally on Thursday morning as allies called on candidates Suella Braverman and Kemi Badenoch to rally behind her. In a bid to reinvigorate her campaign to become the next prime minister, Truss was expected to say her mission remained to make the UK “a nation of aspiration, where every child, every person has the best chance to succeed”. The Trust also repeated its pledge to cut taxes, including reversing the recent rise in national insurance, which is meant to pay for social care. She told the Spectator that the tax cuts could be paid for through additional borrowing.
