Cox tipped for judicial review role as he faces reshuffle sack
GEOFFREY COX could be offered the chance to run a major review into judicial activism as a sop for being sacked in Boris Johnson’s first reshuffle since his election landslide this week.
The Attorney General is being tipped for a move out of government after sources briefed that he was “not a team player”.
However, Tory sources say that to sugar the pill he could be asked to run a new Constitution, Democracy and Rights Commission, which will consider whether to rein in the scope of judicial review challenges in courts.
The Tory party’s manifesto commits the Government to setting up the commission before December. One senior Tory source said the job had been “pretty much designed for him”.
Lucy Frazer is being lined up to replace Mr Cox, although one minister told The Sunday Telegraph: “Geoffrey doesn’t want to go yet, he certainly wants to stay as Attorney General through the [Brexit] negotiations.”
Mr Johnson is understood to have set up a large white board on which he is moving around names and faces of his Cabinet.
One Cabinet minister said the Prime Minister was keeping his plans very private, adding: “The one thing none of us know is what is in Boris’s mind.”
Westminster has been awash with rumours all week, with some claiming that the positions of Dominic Raab, the Foreign Secretary, and Sajid Javid, the Chancellor, were under threat.
Other moves being considered include Cabinet Office minister Oliver Dowden to the culture department, and Mark Spencer to replace Theresa Villiers in the environment, food and rural affairs department.
Michael Gove, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, is tipped to be given a wider role running the Brexit talks at a beefed-up Cabinet Office.
The Prime Minister is also being urged to make the role of the Northern Powerhouse minister – occupied by Jake Berry – a full-time Cabinet position to be a “northern enforcer across the whole of Government”.
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park is widely tipped to be given the role of chairing the COP26 United Nations Climate Change conference in November.
The jobs of Ben Wallace, the Defence Secretary, and Andrea Leadsom, the Business Secretary, are under threat.
Chloe Smith, the Cabinet Office parliamentary secretary, is set to get a beefed-up role by adding Equalities and the Union to her Constitution role.
The dissolution honours, including peerages for as many as two dozen Tories, has been delayed until next month after a row over whether John Bercow, the former House of Commons speaker, should be made a lord, sources said.