British Prime Minister Theresa May dug in her heels Monday after the resignation of two top government ministers over Brexit negotiations whipped up a storm that threatened to topple her fragile minority government
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson quit with a resignation letter accusing May of flying “white flags” of surrender in negotiations with the European Union. He said “the Brexit dream is dying, suffocated by needless self doubt ”
Johnson followed Brexit Secretary David Davis out the door as a hard-won government consensus on future trade ties with the bloc disintegrated less than three days after it was forged, and nine months before Britain is due to leave the EU.
Davis resigned late Sunday, saying May’s plan to maintain close trade and regulatory ties with the EU gave “too much away, too easily.”
If Davis’s resignation rattled May, Johnson’s shook the foundations of her government. The tousle-headed blond Johnson is one of Britain’s best-known politicians, and one of the most prominent advocates for Brexit. Some euroskeptic lawmakers dream of replacing May with a staunch Brexiteer such as Johnson, a populist, polarizing figure who has never made a secret of his ambition to be prime minister.
“It is as though we are sending our vanguard into battle with the white flags fluttering above them,” Johnson wrote in a letter that underscored his credentials as a champion of full-speed Brexit.
“The government now has a song to sing,” he said. “The trouble is that I have practiced the words over the weekend and find that they stick in the throat.”
May named one of her most loyal ministers, Jeremy Hunt, to replace Johnson in the job of Britain’s top diplomat. Hunt had been health secretary, and is a leading government backer of a compromise “soft Brexit.”
May met with Conservative lawmakers in a packed room at Parliament, in a bid to calm the feverish atmosphere in the deeply divided party.
Under Conservative Party rules, a confidence vote in a leader can be triggered if 48 Conservative lawmakers write a letter requesting one. But leading pro-Brexit lawmaker Jacob Rees-Mogg said he didn’t think she would face a leadership challenge.
“My concern is about the policy rather than the individual,” he said.
With Britain due to leave the 28-nation bloc on March 29, 2019, EU officials have warned Britain repeatedly that time is running out to seal a deal spelling out the terms of the divorce and a post-split relationship.
Two years after Britain voted 52 percent to 48 percent to leave the European Union, May is trying to find a middle way between two starkly differing views —within her party and the country — of the U.K.’s relationship with Europe. Pro-Europeans want to retain close economic ties with the bloc and its market of 500 million people, while some, but not all, Brexit supporters want a clean break to make it possible to strike new trade deals around the world.
The resignations came just days after May announced Friday that she had finally united her quarrelsome government behind a plan for a divorce deal with the EU.
Government unity began to fray within hours. Brexit-supporting lawmakers were angered by the proposals, saying they would keep Britain tethered to the bloc and unable to change its rules to strike new trade deals around the world. They also argued that the proposals breach several of the “red lines” the government had set out, including a commitment to leave the EU’s tariff-free customs union.
In his resignation letter, Davis said the “’common rule book policy hands control of large swathes of our economy to the EU and is certainly not returning control of our laws in any real sense.”
Johnson said in his letter that May’s plan to keep close economic ties with the bloc means Britain is heading for a “semi Brexit” that would leave Britain with the “status of a colony” of the EU.
May defended her Brexit plan to lawmakers in the House of Commons on Monday, with Johnson absent from his usual place on the Conservative front bench.
She said she and the two departed ministers “do not agree about the best way of delivering our shared commitment to honoring the result of the referendum” in which U.K. voters opted to leave the EU.
May’s plan seeks to keep the U.K. and the EU in a free-trade zone for goods, and commits Britain to maintaining the same rules as the bloc for goods and agricultural products.
May said the plan would deliver frictionless trade with Europe and was the “only way to avoid a hard border” between the U.K.’s Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland. Working out how to keep the currently invisible border free of tariffs and customs checks has been a major stumbling block in negotiations.
Rebuffing claims that her proposals make too many concessions to the EU, May said her “smooth and orderly Brexit” would leave Britain free to make its own laws and trade deals.
Britain and the EU hope to reach broad agreement by October so the national parliaments of the remaining countries can ratify a deal before Britain leaves. The timetable increasingly looks overly optimistic, and EU frustration with British division and chaos is growing.
European Council President Donald Tusk said Monday that “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.”
Opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said the government was incapable of delivering Brexit.
“How can anyone have faith in the prime minister getting a good deal with 27 European Union governments when she can’t even broker a deal within her own Cabinet?” he asked.
May has hung on to power longer than many expected after she lost her majority in a June 2017 snap election that she had called in hopes of strengthening her hand in Brexit talks.
But May’s allies fear more resignations may follow. Steve Baker, a junior Brexit minister, resigned along with Davis. May appointed staunchly pro-Brexit lawmaker Dominic Raab as the country’s new Brexit secretary.Many pro-Brexit lawmakers were furious at what they saw as a sell-out of the clean Brexit they desire. Euroskeptic Conservative lawmaker Peter Bone said party activists felt “betrayed” by the government plan.
May was asked by an opposition lawmaker Monday whether she would contest a vote of confidence if one came rather than resign.
“Nice try,” she said with a touch of bravado. “But I’m getting on with delivering what the British people want.”
