Arch Brexiteer is promoted by PM to win over hardline critics

THERESA May appointed a hardline Eurosceptic to a key role in the Brexit department yesterday in an effort to appease her party’s Right.

Steve Baker, one of the most vocal Tory Leavers, was promoted in a reshuffle as the PM attempts to shore up her strategy to leave the EU.

The influential backbencher was given the role as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Exiting the EU. Two ministers have already exited in a clearout of the department days before crucial EU negotiations begin.

Hours before his appointment, Mr Baker said the UK needed a ‘good, clean’ exit from the EU that meant ‘actually leaving and controlling laws, money, borders and trade’.

The outspoken Eurosceptic’s appointment will appease the Right of the party, many of whom fear Mrs May could be pushed to rethink her vision of a ‘Tory Brexit’ and reach out to Remainers for a more consensual approach. In a series of tweets, the minister explained what he believed the Government should seek to achieve from the negotiations, due to begin on Monday.

He said the term ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ Brexit was ‘misleading’, adding: ‘We need a good clean exit which minimises disruption and maximises opportunity. In other words, we need the “softest” exit consistent with actually leaving and controlling laws, money, borders and trade.’ He said that meant delivering on the government’s Brexit blueprint so the Government could ‘get on with improving UK and global trade’.

A 77-page White Paper published in February outlined Mrs May’s vision of an ‘independent and truly global United Kingdom’. It also confirmed that the principle of free movement would end and new immigration rules will be ‘phased out’. The department, headed by David Davis, has already seen the loss of Brexiteer David Jones.

He was sacked from his junior ministerial role just days after he said it was ‘impossible to say’ if Mrs May would be PM in six months’ time given the shock result.

And Lord Bridges, the department’s representative in the House of Lords, resigned to pursue business interests. In a further blow for Brexit minister Mr Davis, his Parliamentary Private Secretary, Stewart Jackson, lost his seat in the election last week. Mr Davis also loses his chief of staff, James Chapman, to City PR firm Bell Pottinger.