Ken Clarke: Theresa May has no clue what she’s doing on Brexit Former chancellor Ken Clarke has accused Theresa May of running a “government with no policies” in the first major attack […]

Former chancellor Ken Clarke has accused Theresa May of running a “government with no policies” in the first major attack on the new Prime Minister.

Mr Clarke, who clashed with Mrs May when he was Justice Secretary and she was in the Home Office, claimed the Prime Minister has no plan on how to execute Britain’s departure from the European Union.

The Remain campaigner told the New Statesman: “Nobody in the Government has the first idea what they’re going to do next on the Brexit front.”

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Mr Clarke, who was caught on camera in June calling Mrs May a “bloody difficult woman” warned against the Prime Minister giving too much power to the “Three Brexiteers”, Boris Johnson, David Davis and Liam Fox.

“Whatever is negotiated will be denounced by the ultra-Eurosceptics as a betrayal…Theresa May has had the misfortune of taking over at the most impossible time. She faces an appalling problem of trying to get these ‘Three Brexiteers’ to agree,” he said.

‘I won’t vote for Brexit in House of Commons’

In the interview, Mr Clarke said he would not vote to leave the European Union in the House of Commons, making him the first Tory MP to publicly say so.

The MP for Rushcliffe, who is president of the Conservative Europe Group, said: “The idea that I’m suddenly going to change my lifelong opinions about the national interest and regard myself as instructed to vote in parliament on the basis of an opinion poll is laughable.”

He lamented David Cameron’s decision to call an EU referendum to appease his party’s backbenches, and said Mr Cameron would “go down in history as the man who made the mistake of taking us out of the European Union”.

His comments will be seen as the latest evidence of Tory infighting over Europe – an issue that has plagued the party for decades – and the first notable criticism of Theresa May’s governance following the UK’s decision to leave the EU.