Axed aide Sonia Khan ‘was Brexiteer who would win tribunal over on-the-spot sacking’

Sonia Khan at the Conservative Party annual conference
PA
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Sacked Treasury aide Sonia Khan would probably win an employment tribunal over her on-the-spot dismissal by the Prime Minister’s Downing Street chief Dominic Cummings, former chancellor Philip Hammond said today.

The ex-Cabinet minister described the way that Ms Khan had been treated as “shocking” after she was escorted by police out of No 10 following a meeting with Mr Cummings.

“It’s extraordinary that Dominic Cummings should have chosen to pick on her,” Mr Hammond told BBC radio. “She ironically is a very firm Brexiteer.

“If she went to an employment tribunal, I suspect she would win her case.”

Ms Khan had been Mr Hammond’s media special adviser when he was chancellor and did this role for his successor Sajid Javid, who was furious about how she was axed.

Chancellor Philip Hammond walks with Poppy Trowbridge (left) and Sonia Khan
PA

She was sacked after a leak of plans for a secretive Privy Council meeting for the Government to ask the Queen to suspend Parliament for a month in the run-up to the planned Brexit day on October 31.

An ally denied that she leaked the plan. Mr Cummings confronted her over who she had been speaking to but Mr Hammond stressed he had no contact with her since he left government.

He could not say whether she had spoken to other members of his former Treasury team.

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