A former Cabinet Minister has admitted he had a "disagreement" with under-fire Tory Dominic Raab after reports Mr Raab tried to get him sacked.
Ex-Welsh Secretary Sir Robert Buckland said that the pair had clashed over a Telegraph article he wrote criticising Mr Raab's controversial plan for a British Bill of Rights last year - but they have "moved on now".
Mr Raab allegedly tried to get his fellow Tory fired last August for publicly attacking his plans to tear up human rights legislation.
A source told the Times that the now-Deputy PM's behaviour was "very odd, very punchy" but Sir Robert did not regard it as bullying.
Another source told the paper that Sir Robert informed Rishi Sunak about the “intimidating” and “unacceptable” behaviour during the dying days of Boris Johnson's government last year.
But Mr Sunak's allies denied this as the Prime Minister faces mounting questions over what he knew about allegations over Mr Raab's conduct.
Mr Raab, who is also Justice Secretary, is being investigated over eight formal complaints of bullying said to involve at least 24 officials during his time in three Government departments. He denies bullying.
Downing Street has repeatedly said that Mr Sunak was not aware of any formal complaints about Mr Raab when he appointed him as Deputy PM in October 2022.
But No10 has refused to say if he knew about any informal concerns.
When asked whether it was true that Mr Raab issued the threat over the Bill of Rights article, the Tory MP told LBC: "I don't want to rake back through the coals of what happened last summer.
"Dominic and I have a disagreement about his Bill of Rights, clearly he wasn't going to agree with the article that I did write in the Telegraph.
"I was talking about the Government to come - that is, the Government post-Boris Johnson - and felt that it was entirely appropriate to do that.
"There are robust disagreements in politics. I'm old enough and ugly enough to hold my own corner, and Dominic is known for his robustness as well. There was a disagreement, but we've moved on."
Asked about Mr Raab's approach, Sir Robert said he was "at the top end of the robustness scale, I don't think anybody would deny that".
No10 did not comment further on the claims.
Asked if Mr Sunak agreed with Sir Robert, the PM's official spokesman said: "It's not the exact phrase I would put with him.
"I'm simply not going to get into a lot of the speculation and commentary that's been taking place was this investigation is still live."
Senior lawyer Adam Tolley KC was appointed by Mr Sunak to investigate the claims against Mr Raab once it was clear that formal complaints about his conduct had been made.
Mr Sunak has faced calls from unions, opposition MPs and even former Tory chairman Sir Jake Berry to suspend Mr Raab while the investigation is carried out.
Mr Raab denies allegations of bullying and has said he will cooperate with the probe.
He previously said: “I’m confident I behaved professionally, and of course the Government takes a zero-tolerance approach to bullying.”
