The UK’s position in Brexit trade talks will not be affected by the departure of Dominic Cummings from Downing Street, the government has said.
The announcement by cabinet minister George Eustice dashes hopes that a pledged “reset” in No.10 could steer Boris Johnson away from a no-deal at the end of the year.
It comes as the prime minister’s former chief aide was accused by Tory insiders of creating “mayhem in government “and using the Downing Street press office “as a vehicle for distributing smears, untruths and lies”.
Asked whether the UK’s position in talks could shift with the changing of the guard in No.10, Mr Eustice told the BBC: “No, our approach to the trade talks with the European Union had been led by [chief negotiator] David Frost from the very beginning.
“He’s got a very talented team of negotiators around him who are leading on that, and they’re all still in place.”
Some in Brussels believe that Mr Cummings was “calling the shots” on the UK Brexit policy, and are expecting a shift in emphasis from Mr Johnson.
Phillippe Lamberts, an MEP who sat on the European Parliament’s Brexit committee, had claimed this week that the advisor’s departure was “probably the sign that Johnson has begun his U-turn and will in the end accept EU conditions” for a trade deal.
Mr Cummings had previously written on his blog that the UK should be capable of following through on the threat of a no-deal. He is reportedly positive about the approach, which he sees as clearing the way for state aid in the technology sector to create British tech giants to rival US firms like Google and Facebook.
The prime minister is expected to meet with concerned Tories, who reportedly felt “sidelined” during the Cummings era, and will “attempt to get his premiership back on track”, according to a report in the Sunday Times.
Dominic Grieve, the former attorney general, said Dominic Cummings had “created nothing except chaos” for Mr Johnson.
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“The whole of his period in government has been marked by a slide in standards so that the Number 10 press office has been used as a vehicle for distributing smears, untruths and lies which was very obvious in the autumn of last year and the period around prorogation and the run up to the general election,” he told Times Radio.
“Whether it’s the handling of Covid and his own behaviour, whether it’s the Internal Markets Bill because quite apart from being utterly wrong in violating international law, that has blown up in the face of the Government and led to a massive rebellion in the Commons and the House of Lords and something of a crisis associated with that.”
