Philip Hammond is the only Conservative politician telling the truth about Brexit

Unprepossessing as he is, even funereal in demeanour, the nation should be grateful for the grounded presence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer as the leader of the sensible faction within Theresa May's badly fractured Cabinet. Someone, after all, has got to tell the British people some of the hard truths about hard Brexit, and what it will mean for their living standards and public services.

Philip Hammond is clear, even brutal, about the consequences of a hard Brexit: less funding for schools and hospitals (so much for that claim on the side of the Brexit Bus), and a lingering poisonous cloud over investment in the British economy. About time for this honesty.

The Treasury, more than most departments of state, realises the long-term impact of low investment on productivity which is to depress economic growth and wage rises. The Office for Budget Responsibility, in what should count as the most devastating piece of economic analysis in recent years, has highlighted how dire the trend in British productivity has become since the financial crisis a decade ago. Though poorly understood by economists, it is real and the consequences, even without Brexit, will be harsh indeed. No nation can pay itself more than it earns in the long run without running up unsustainable debt; with Brexit that central fact will become still more acute.

The Chancellor realises that there is very little political gain to be had from misleading the electors. Even the most bullish proponents of “Brexit now” – disturbingly overrepresented in the Conservative parliamentary party – should recognise that the transition to a “global Britain” will be painful and difficult, even if it will yield the advertised fabulous results in the longer run. For years on end it will necessarily mean economic dislocation as trade patterns adjust and resources move from sector to sector; in plain terms it will mean more unemployment as jobs are lost and before new ones are created, and, very likely, more inflation as sterling depreciates to a level where the trade deficit (again widening) is at least sustainable.

Such are the inevitable consequences of Brexit, and no amount of blather about “exciting opportunities” can mask the fact. National myths about Agincourt, Waterloo and Dunkirk, turned to by the hard-Brexit rebels, cannot sell a single Nissan Qashqai in France after the tariffs get slapped on it and the customs barriers go up at the channel ports. This is something Mr Hammond understands. As we head towards what he calls “Bad Tempered Hard Brexit”, a previously undiscovered sub-species of “Hard Brexit”, the possibility grows of a trade war with Europe, even though, as all sides freely acknowledge, this is in nobody’s interest.

Mr Hammond simply states what is obvious; that sometimes nations and supra-national bodies such as the EU do irrational things. A Cabinet that pretends that the British economy can welcome hard Brexit is simply misleading the electorate, and will in due course be punished severely, not only for its failure to secure a deal but also for being so dishonest about the likely turn of events. That may happen sooner rather than later if the Government collapses under the weight of its own divisions, and public revulsion at its treatment of the NHS and the cruelties of the Universal Credit reforms.

One of the very few benefits of Theresa May's weak and faltering leadership of her party, Government and country is that she is so feeble that she cannot sack the Chancellor, as she was widely expected to do after her disastrous decision to hold that snap election in June. Mr Hammond, then, is free to speak his mind and to tell the truth. In style and in substance he could hardly be more different from the leader of the hard-Brexit group in the Conservative Party, Boris Johnson.

Where Mr Johnson sticks to the ludicrous promise that Brexit really will mean an extra £350m a week for the NHS – debunked by the Chancellor already – and indulges in sub-Churchillian rhetoric about the British lion roaring its way to economic growth; where Mr Johnson quotes Kipling, Mr Hammond cites numbers from Excel spreadsheets; where Mr Johnson makes fatuous claims about non-existent trade deals, the Chancellor is clear-sighted about the possibility of a trade war with the EU; and where Mr Johnson is in politics for himself and only himself, Mr Hammond, whose ambition is better camouflaged, places the national interest first, or as much as he can with such an unworkable policy.

Mr Hammond it is, then, who seems to embody all the virtues that Ms May was supposed to do when the Conservatives turned to her for leadership after the bloodbath at the top of their party last year – a solid, unshowy and safe pair of hands, bright enough to take a brief, though no intellectual – but also with the invaluable addition that he appears to be the only person near the top of the Tory hierarchy who has an even remote grip on how the economy works.

The only thing wrong with Mr Hammond is that he has not yet reached the point where he is prepared to tell the truth to the British people, which is that the country, whether it really supports it or not, will find a hard Brexit worse for jobs and wages than staying in the European Union. That time, though, will surely arrive before long. Meantime, if there is to be a ministerial reshuffle,

Ms May should place the Treasury and Mr Hammond, that unlikely messiah, at the head of the Brexit negotiations. He has a much better chance of persuading the EU side that the UK is serious and constructive, and thus deserves the chance to speed up the talks and start work on the new trade relationship. The stakes could not be higher. We simply cannot stumble like this on any longer.