I’m the dude*
Prime Minister Johnson to appoint Brexiteer Cabinet as he spends his first 100 days in No10 focusing solely on leaving the EU on October 31
BORIS JOHNSON will today begin assembling a majority Brexiteer Cabinet as he clears out Remainers to end “selfdoubt” and get Britain ready for leaving the EU on Oct 31.
Priti Patel, one of the most ardent Eurosceptics in the Conservative Party, will be given a seat at Mr Johnson’s top table as he begins addressing the threeto-one majority of Remain voters in the Cabinet that he will inherit from Theresa May.
He will also make it the most ethnically diverse Cabinet in history, with Alok Sharma, the employment minister, among those to be given their own department, and the number of female secretaries of state also increasing.
Mr Johnson, who won the Tory leadership yesterday with 66 per cent of party members’ votes, will call a halt to domestic legislation for his first 100 days in office as he tells his ministers to focus on Brexit.
As he won the role he has long believed to be his destiny, he said he was not “daunted” by the scale of the task ahead of him, and was “impatient” to get on with the job.
He said he would work “flat out” to deliver Brexit, adding: “I think that we know we can do it and that the people of this country are trusting in us to do it, and we know that we will do it.”
His supporters said his victory, with 92,153 votes to Jeremy Hunt’s 46,656, gave him a “clear mandate” to deliver Brexit with or without a deal by
Hallowe’en.
Mr Johnson said his task was to deliver Brexit, unite the country, defeat Jeremy Corbyn and energise Britain, the initials of which spell “dude”.
In a typically bombastic acceptance speech, he said: “The mantra of the campaign that has just gone by … is deliver Brexit, unite the country and defeat Jeremy Corbyn – and that is what we are going to do.
“I know that some wag has already pointed out that deliver, unite and defeat was not the perfect acronym for an election campaign, since unfortunately it spells dud – but they forgot the final ‘e’ my friends, ‘e’ for energise. And I say to all the doubters: ‘Dude! We are going to energise the country. We are going to get Brexit done on October 31.’”
Donald Trump was among the first to congratulate Mr Johnson, saying he would make a “great” prime minister because “he’s tough and he’s smart”, before telling a student rally in Washington DC that Mr Johnson was “the British Trump”.
The US president also claimed Nigel Farage, the leader of the Brexit Party, was “going to work well with Boris” and “do some tremendous things”.
Mr Johnson is lining up a visit to the US within the next month, the first of three meetings with Mr Trump before the end of September.
Before that, he is expected to begin a tour of the four nations of the UK this weekend with a visit to the north of England to set out his vision for the country, and is likely to invite EU chiefs to the UK within days to begin talks about a new Brexit deal. Aides said he would take no holidays until Brexit was delivered.
After being appointed prime minister by the Queen this afternoon, Mr Johnson will begin dismantling the Remain-voting majority in the Cabinet, 22 of whom voted to stay in the EU, compared with seven who voted Leave.
Mr Johnson has said that everyone in his Cabinet must sign up to the possibility of a no-deal Brexit, and wants more than half of his ministers to be Brexiteers. Some, including Sajid Javid
Mr Hunt and Liz Truss, now class themselves as Brexiteers despite having voted Remain in the EU referendum. There were reports yesterday that two-thirds could be Brexiteers, but sources close to Mr Johnson stressed that he wanted to unify the party and suggested the majority will be lower.
Mr Johnson will appoint a “Cabinet for modern Britain” as he tries to change the image of the party with the highest ever number of black and minority ethnic ministers and a higher number of female ministers.
Ms Patel, who was sacked as international development secretary by Mrs May after holding meetings in Israel without telling her, has been tipped as a possible home secretary but is said to covet the role of party chairman.
Mr Sharma, seen as one of the most capable ministers currently in a junior role, is expected to be promoted to a full Cabinet position. Other “rising stars” likely to be given promotions include Rishi Sunak, the local government minister, and former culture minister Tracey Crouch, who resigned over government policy on fixed-odds betting terminals last year. Oliver Dowden, 40, a junior minister at the Cabinet Office, and 37-year-old Robert Jenrick, a Treasury minister, will also be given promotions.
The FTSE 100 index rose on the announcement of Mr Johnson’s victory, and finished the day half a percentage point higher than it had started.
Key allies of Mr Johnson said yesterday he would call a halt to domestic legislation until Brexit is delivered after inheriting a Commons working majority of just two. It means that key pledges such as bringing in a new points-based immigration system will have to wait.
One key member of Mr Johnson’s team said: “Getting Brexit done is simple – we just don’t bring any legislation between now and the time we leave.
“As long as the Commons doesn’t bring him down with a vote of confidence we are leaving on October 31.” A Cabinet source said: “He can still stick to some of his spending commitments on education and policing because not all of them depend on new laws being passed.” Mr Johnson was given a standing ovation as his victory was announced at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in Westminster, with his father Stanley, brother Jo and sister Rachel there to cheer him on.
His partner, Carrie Symonds, however,
‘Boris will build a Cabinet … that truly reflects modern Britain’
did not attend, as the couple have decided she should remain in the background until Mr Johnson has settled in.
He was later given a raucous reception by the 1922 Committee of backbench Tory MPS, where he said an early general election was “not a priority”.
Mr Johnson surprised Tory MPS by making the Remain-voting Mark Spencer Chief Whip his first Cabinet appointment. He believes that by appointing a Remainer to run party discipline, he will have the best chance of reining in Europhiles.
Jeremy Hunt is said to have made clear to Mr Johnson during a 15-minute meeting that he was willing to accept only three roles: his present job of Foreign Secretary, Chancellor or Deputy Prime Minister. According to The Times, Mr Johnson offered him the position of Defence Secretary, which Mr Hunt refused because it was considered a “notional demotion”.
‘In a new spirit of can-do … we are once again going to believe in ourselves’
David Gauke, the Justice Secretary, Rory Stewart, the International Development Secretary, and Anne Milton, the minister for skills, all announced their resignations within moments of Mr Johnson being appointed, in an attempt to take the gloss off his victory.
Mr Hunt, Mr Johnson’s beaten rival who described him as a “coward” during the leadership campaign, is expected to be demoted from his role as Foreign Secretary. Mr Johnson said that after Brexit: “In a new spirit of cando … we are once again going to believe in ourselves and what we can achieve.
“And like some slumbering giant, we are going to rise and ping off the guy ropes of self-doubt and negativity, with better education, better infrastructure, more police, fantastic full-fibre broadband sprouting in every household – we are going to unite this amazing country and we are going to take it forward.”