Boris Johnson quits as Foreign Secretary amid a growing crisis over Brexit.
In a blow to May, foreign secretary Johnson and Brexit minister Davis quit
LONDON: Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson quit over Prime Minister Theresa May’s plans to leave the European Union, the second resignation in a day leaving the British leader’s Brexit plans all but in tatters.
After a day when the foreign secretary cancelled meetings for crisis talks at his official residence in central London, Johnson decided to walk from his job – just hours after May’s Brexit minister David Davis did the same in protest at her plans.
The two resignations leave May badly exposed at the top of a government unable to unite over Britain’s biggest foreign and trading policy shift in almost half a decade.
It also puts a question mark over whether the leader will try to weather it and stand firm in her commitment to pursue a “business friendly” Brexit, or will be faced with more resignations and calls to quit herself.
The departures raise the stakes for May, who secured a hard-won agreement with her deeply divided Cabinet of ministers on Friday to keep the closest possible trading ties with the EU.
“This afternoon, the Prime Minister accepted the resignation of Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary,” May’s spokesman said in a
statement yesterday.
“His replacement will be announced shortly. The Prime Minister thanks Boris for his work.”
In private, Johnson had reportedly criticised May’s plan referring to it as “polishing a turd”.
Since Cabinet approval for the plan on Friday, however, he had refrained from public comment.
He was due to co-host a summit on the Western Balkans in London on Monday but did not show up.
Germany’s junior foreign minister Michael Roth tweeted: “We’re still waiting for our host”.
Many eurosceptics are angry, saying the agreed strategy betrays her promise for a clean break with the EU, raising the prospect that some could try to unseat her.
Davis said he had resigned to stop May from handing too much power to the European Union.
Davis, who campaigned for Brexit in Britain’s 2016 referendum, told BBC radio that a hard-won agreement with her Cabinet team of ministers had given “too much away, too easily” to EU negotiators, who, he feared, would simply ask for more.
The resignations may also further complicate an already fraught Brexit, with less than nine months before Britain leaves and just over three before the EU says it wants a deal that will mark Britain’s biggest foreign and trade policy shift in decades.
“My fear is they will take what we have offered already and then demand some more. That has been their practice throughout the last year and I fear, in fact, if anything, this is just the start,” Davis said.
“It seems to me we are giving too much away, too easily.”
Denying that he wanted to unseat the prime minister, he said he would now “argue for being as firm as possible”.
In a letter sent to May yesterday, Davis said he was not willing to be “a reluctant conscript” to her negotiating stance, which would see Britain mirror EU rules and regulations.
May replied to his letter to say she did not agree “with your characterisation of the policy we agreed at Cabinet on Friday”.
She thanked him for his work.
May appointed staunchly pro-Brexit lawmaker Dominic Raab as the country’s new Brexit secretary.
European Council President Donald Tusk said yesterday that it is unfortunate that the whole “idea of Brexit has not left together with David Davis”.
Tusk added: “The mess caused by Brexit is the biggest problem in the history of EU-UK relations and it is still very far from being resolved, with or without Mr Davis.”
Asked about his reaction to Johnson’s resignation, EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said sarcastically that “this clearly proves that at Chequers, there was unity in the Cabinet.” — Agencies