Brexit secretary David Davis has apologised after private text messages emerged in which he insulted Diane Abbott.
Abbott was said by friends to have been upset by reports of the remarks, which were leaked to the Mail on Sunday, and followed a late-night encounter between the pair in a House of Commons bar after Wednesday night’s historic Brexit vote.
Davis was reportedly told to “fuck off” by Abbott as he thanked her for voting in favour of the legislation, which Labour backed with a three-line whip. He later texted a friend to say reports that he had tried to embrace the Hackney MP were untrue, because “I am not blind”; and if he had done so, it would have made “a good Optical Express advert”.
MPs suggested the incident reflected poorly on Davis, with one senior female Tory saying, “it just shows his arrogance, and it’s a shame he’s been invited back into government”. Another described Davis as “a law unto himself”.
Shami Chakrabarti, shadow attorney general and a friend of Abbott, said Davis had been, “very silly, sexist and patronising”. Speaking on Peston on Sunday, she said the shadow home secretary had kept a “dignified silence” over the affair, but was “not someone who would have her hand patted by Donald Trump or David Davis or anybody else.”
A spokesman for Davis said: “This was a self-evidently jocular and private exchange with a friend. The Secretary of State is very sorry for any offence caused to Miss Abbott, someone he has known and respected for many years.”
Davis was languishing on the backbenches when Theresa May unexpectedly brought him into the cabinet last year to help implement the voters’ decision to leave the European Union.
Witnesses to the encounter between Abbott and Davis last week said it appeared to be good-natured, but pointed to the febrile atmosphere in the House of Commons last week as MPs voted on the Brexit bill.
Abbott was absent for the second reading of the legislation, citing a migraine, sparking speculation about whether she was considering defying Jeremy Corbyn’s three-line whip and voting against. But she was in her usual place on the front bench last Wednesday to back the third reading of the bill.
Davis will hope to leave the controversy behind as he flies off to visit Finland and Sweden this week to discuss Britain’s future relationship with the Scandinavian countries after Brexit. On Monday, he will meet Finnish foreign minister Timo Soini and cross-party members of Finland’s EU Parliament committee.
A spokesman for the department for exiting the EU said, “Throughout the talks David Davis will be reinforcing the strong ties that bind the UK with Finland and Sweden, which existed long before any were members of the EU and will continue after the UK’s exit.”
Davis is likely to be pressed on the fate of citizens from the two countries living in Britain. The prime minister has said she would like to settle the issue of EU citizens’ rights as soon as possible after formal article 50 talks begin, but some MPs would have liked her to make a unilateral guarantee to protect their citizenship before negotiations begin.
