Top Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg has stood by his decision to raise claims that Treasury officials are attempting to influence Brexit policy.

Mr Rees-Mogg asked Brexit minister Steve Baker in the Commons to confirm if he had been told about allegations that civil servants were trying to get ministers to back staying in the EU's customs union.

Mr Baker said in reply that he had heard about the "extraordinary allegation", with his answer prompting fury from the union representing senior civil servants.

The FDA accused Mr Baker of failing to challenge a "half-baked conspiracy theory" and labelled his response "cowardly".

Image: Brexit minister Steve Baker backtracked in a series of tweets

The Centre for European Reform's Charles Grant, who was alleged to have been the source of the claim at a Tory party conference event last year, denied making it.


He said: "I did not say or imply that the Treasury had deliberately developed a model to show that all non-customs union options were bad, with the intention to influence policy."

The row puts pressure on the Government, as Number 10 had earlier backed Mr Baker. A spokesman for the Prime Minister said Downing Street had "no reason to question his account".

After Prospect magazine, which hosted the event in question, released audio which showed Mr Grant did not make the comments, Mr Baker backtracked in a series of tweets:

1/3 This morning in Parliament, I answered a question based on my honest recollection of a conversation. As I said, I considered what I had understood to be implausible, because of the impartiality of the civil service. — Steve Baker MP (@SteveBakerHW) February 1, 2018

2/3 The audio of that conversation is now available and I am glad the record stands corrected. In the context of that audio, I accept that I should have corrected the premise of the question. — Steve Baker MP (@SteveBakerHW) February 1, 2018

3/3 I will apologise to Charles Grant, who is an honest and trustworthy man. As I have put on record many times, I have the highest regard for our hard working civil servants. I will clarify my remarks to the House. — Steve Baker MP (@SteveBakerHW) February 1, 2018

But an unrepentant Mr Rees-Mogg stood by raising the issue.

Speaking at an event at Queen Mary University's Mile End Institute, the North East Somerset MP claimed Mr Grant had tweeted a similar sentiment months before the Progress meeting.

He said: "If he says he didn't make it, he says he didn't make it. But he made a very similar claim on Twitter."

The tweet Mr Rees-Mogg was referring to reads: "This piece by @RobertsDan on how the Treasury is pushing UK govt towards a softer Brexit is well-informed"

On claims officials are attempting to influence policy, Mr Rees-Mogg said: "It is a worrying suspicion.

"I think on this whole issue the thing I'm really concerned about is that you get a week ago the CBI coming out and saying it's really important that we stay in the customs union.

"You then get the Chancellor in Davos saying the CBI is - the EU-funded CBI as we ought to call it - a wonderful organisation and we should have as modest a Brexit as possible and remain closely aligned.

"And then a few days after that you have a leak of a Treasury-designed economic model that says the only thing to do is stay in the customs union.

"You just wonder whether there isn't a pattern in that. Whether there isn't some orchestration rather than being an accidental constellation of the stars."

Mr Rees-Mogg claimed the Treasury was deliberately producing forecasts that show a negative outcome.

"It's exactly what they did prior to the referendum, so it is of a piece," he told the audience at the east London university.

"So what Charles Grant did or didn't say at a lunch doesn't really matter very much and I never claim to have heard it.

"What does matter, and he broadly indicated this in the tweet, it fits in with the facts and it's why you can be so suspicious of these forecasts because they are designed to a particular end and the end is to show the only thing we should do is, lo and behold, stay in the customs union, which basically means not leaving the European Union."