After a day of high drama in Westminster, tensions are running high in Parliament. And also, it seems, in the buildings attached to Parliament – like Westminster Underground. This is the ‘service information’ message on today’s board: ‘Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools that don’t have enough brains to be honest’ Who ever could they be referring to?
It would be easy to dismiss the Independent Commission on Referendums as a branch of the lobby trying to overturn the Brexit result – even if it does contain a token Leave campaigner, Gisela Stuart. Its pretentious title could easily lead people to mistake it for an official, government-sanctioned inquiry rather than a unsolicited piece of work by academics at the Constitution Unit, UCL. It is utterly certain that the commission would not have been set up had the Remain side won the day two years ago. Yet even so, the commission is right when it concludes that referendums “work best when they are held at the end of a
Theresa May’s mini emergency reshuffle is complete. After David Davis and Boris Johnson resigned over the Prime Minister’s Brexit position, No 10 appointed Dominic Raab Brexit Secretary and moved Jeremy Hunt from Health to the Foreign Office. Now Matt Hancock – the Culture Secretary – has been appointed Health Secretary. This is a big promotion for Hancock who up until recently had been banished to the junior ministerial ranks. As George Osborne’s former Chief of Staff, Hancock had been regarded with suspicion by May’s No 10. When May’s reshuffle earlier this year hit difficulties – with ministers refusing to move – Hancock was reluctantly granted a return to the frontbench.
You couldn’t get a stronger contrast between the new Foreign Secretary and his predecessor. Jeremy Hunt is a minister who has earned the absolute trust of two Prime Ministers in an extremely politically charged job. He was brought in by David Cameron to clear up the mess after Andrew Lansley’s Health and Social Care Act disaster, and Theresa May kept him in place, quickly learning that he was one of the few ministers she really could leave to their own devices. This was a huge accolade from May, given her propensity to micromanage. Hunt earned that trust because he is a very loyal Cabinet minister. He does not style himself
Jeremy Hunt is the new Foreign Secretary, replacing Boris Johnson. Having secured a new funding settlement for the NHS, Hunt has—finally—agreed to move jobs. I suspect it will be quite some time before anyone beats his record as the longest serving Health Secretary ever. Hunt was a Remainer during the referendum campaign. But since he has become one of those ministers who have talked with some genuine enthusiasm about the opportunities that Brexit might offer. Having lived in Japan and having family links on his wife’s side to China, Hunt does know something of the world outside Britain. He is also naturally diplomatic. I suspect that Foreign Office officials will
Having lost two of her most senior Cabinet Ministers, Theresa May went to address her MPs in a stuffy, hot room. But the occasion went off fairly-well for her. The vast majority of the questions were supportive and even the veteran Eurosceptic Edward Leigh made clear that the 1990s showed that a leadership contest wouldn’t achieve anything. Perhaps, the most hostile moment came towards the end of the session when Philip Davies asked if she regretted how Friday was handled given it appeared like a Remain coup. Other than Davies, most of the questions were fairly friendly. Former Cabinet Ministers Damian Green, and Patrick McLoughlin were supportive. Maria Caufield, a
Dear Theresa It is more than two years since the British people voted to leave the European Union on an unambiguous and categorical promise that if they did so they would be taking back control of their democracy. They were told that they would be able to manage their own immigration policy, repatriate the sums of UK cash currently spent by the EU, and, above all, that they would be able to pass laws independently and in the interests of the people of this country. Brexit should be about opportunity and hope. It should be a chance to do things differently, to be more nimble and dynamic, and to maximise
Trump says he likes things ‘nice and complicated’ – well, in that case, he couldn’t be coming to Britain at a better time. Theresa May’s newly hatched soft Brexit plan, announced on Friday, has triggered two major resignations from her cabinet and another political crisis in Britain. David Davis, the Brexit Secretary, went late last night. Then Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary followed early this afternoon. Westminster is now alive with whispers of an imminent leadership coup; the Tory party looks hopelessly divided, the political system unable to cope. We may even have another general election, the third in four years. Enter Trump, stage right. He must be licking
When Theresa May envisaged herself giving a statement in the Commons on the Cabinet agreement made at Chequers, she didn’t expect to do so with her Brexit Secretary and Foreign Secretary no longer by her side. And so it was after a morning of high drama, a lonely Prime Minister this afternoon had to face questions from a divided party over a Brexit position she yesterday thought her Cabinet agreed upon. It wasn’t a pleasurable experience for the beleaguered Prime Minister. Labour’s Kevin Brennan asked May whether the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg was right that 48 letters had been sent calling for a ‘no confidence’ vote. May simply said she was
With the resignations in the past 24 hours of two of Theresa May’s four most senior ministers – Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary, and David Davis as Brexit Secretary – something very important died. But it is not clear whether what has been snuffed out is Theresa May’s Brexit plan or Theresa May’s leadership of the Conservative Party. That at least is what Tory Brexiter MPs tell me. Like Davis and Johnson, they see her Brexit proposal – to permanently be governed by EU rules for the making of goods and food, and also to collect EU tariffs at our borders – as a betrayal of the 17.4m people who
In the past 24 hours, Theresa May has lost two of the Cabinet ministers who have caused her the most trouble. Boris Johnson and David Davis were widely considered to be immovable, despite a number of crises entirely of their own making. The only way for them to go was by resignation, which lends them an appearance of strength. This strength has little to do with the achievements of either minister, though. David Davis had been increasingly sidelined from the negotiation process, which does appear to have been a key factor in his decision to go, given no-one likes to be treated as though they don’t matter. But it isn’t
Boris Johnson has resigned. The Foreign Secretary becomes the second senior Cabinet Minister to quit over the deal agreed at Chequers, which he reportedly called a ‘turd’. At the weekend, those close to Boris were clear that he wouldn’t resign. They said that the only people who would benefit from his resignation would be Michel Barnier and co and that he intended to stay and fight against further concessions to the EU. So, what has changed? Well, a cynic would say David Davis’s resignation. But I understand another factor for him has been how he would defend this plan in public. The more he thought about it, the more he
The appointment of Dominic Raab as Brexit Secretary to replace David Davis is very smart politics by the prime minister. He is regarded by the True Brexiters as one of them. In fact, David Davis sees Raab as his protege. For what its worth, his promotion shows the influence in Downing Street of the director of communications, Robbie Gibb – late of the BBC – in that Gibb has been a fan of Raab’s for some time. If there is a mystery, it is why Raab took the job. The point is that it is pretty unlikely that he fundamentally disagrees with Davis that May’s plan to take EU rules
Theresa May’s nightmare Monday morning is going from bad to worse. Steve Baker, who followed David Davis out of the exit door at the Brexit department, has savaged the Prime Minister’s Chequers plan on the Daily Politics. When asked whether the Brexit blueprint was delivering Brexit in name only, he had this to say: ‘The problem with this particular Brexit is that it will not allow us to have proper control over what goes on in the United Kingdom. We need to get out from treaty obligations that automatically oblige parliament to accept any particular rules and instead be in a position where what we do it is a matter for
Dominic Raab has this morning been appointed as David Davis’s successor as Brexit Secretary. Raab moves from his role as minister of state for Housing to his first Cabinet post as Secretary of State for Exiting the EU. Well-liked among colleagues, Raab is someone who is seen to have been consistently overlooked for promotion. He was recently asked in a television interview, why he hadn’t been promoted given that he was so consistently loyal in defending the government’s position. He is also a savvy hire by No 10 thanks to the fact Raab is a Davis ally and a dedicated Leaver. It will help to send the signal that this
David Davis has walked away. It’s what he does best. DDexit was inevitable from the moment he was appointed Brexit secretary. Davis is a quitter, not a fixer; asked to compromise, his preference is always for blowing the whole show up. Reports suggest he was especially irked by the No. 10 briefing about ministers being stuck at Chequers without a working local taxi number. The bloke was in the SAS Reserves and couldn’t figure out how to download the Uber app. It’s no mystery why the Brexit negotiations have been going nowhere. There isn’t much affection for Davis, even among his fellow Brexit ultras, but some will try to paint
David Davis has broken his silence on his resignation. Unsurprisingly his comments on the Today programme are devastating for Theresa May’s Brexit strategy. The now-departed Brexit secretary said his position was no longer tenable because he simply didn’t believe in the PM’s approach. In his resignation letter last night, he had said that ‘that the national interest requires a Secretary of State in my Department that is an enthusiastic believer in the approach, and not merely a reluctant conscript’. He went further on the Today programme, calling the PM’s approach a ‘dangerous strategy’. What is worrying for May is not only that Davis himself couldn’t get behind May’s approach but also that he
I listened to the Coffee House podcast about Danny Dyer’s David Cameron rant. Fraser Nelson appears to live in a parallel universe. It is true that Cameron probably expected to be in a coalition with the Lib Dems again in 2015 and to never have to fulfil the promise of an EU referendum. However it is absurd to lay the blame for the government’s disastrous handling of Brexit negotiations at Cameron’s door. After all, was it David Cameron or Theresa May who triggered Article 50 with no clear negotiating plan? Was it David Cameron or Theresa May who called a snap election in a fit of hubris only to lose
The Brexit Secretary David Davis has quit. Davis’s resignation is the biggest political crisis that Theresa May has faced since the loss of her majority in the general election and leaves her facing a battle to save her premiership. Davis has gone because he could not stomach the opening UK negotiating position agreed at Chequers. Davis has long been clear that he wanted a final deal that was, essentially, a souped-up version of the Canada free trade deal. But the position agreed at Chequers envisaged a relationship very different to that, one far more firmly in the EU’s regulatory orbit. As Brexit Secretary Davis was meant to promote the Chequers
Tory MPs and ministers have consistently under-estimated their leader. What Theresa May achieved at Chequers yesterday was extraordinary. She persuaded her cabinet to sign up for a Brexit plan that drives a coach and horses through what the Brexiters in her team – especially Boris Johnson and Michael Gove – said Brexit was all about, during that historic referendum campaign. What is more, at Chequers yesterday, Gove was a cheerleader for a plan that would enshrine in treaty what is supposedly anathema to his Brexit cause – that the UK now and forever would be subject to European Union rules and regulations governing the quality and safety of the goods
