Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson, herself now touted as a future leader having delivered 12 new seats, Rudd and finance minister Philip Hammond have already met this week to discuss how to stop Johnson becoming the next leader and achieve a softer Brexit by remaining in the EU’s customs union.įor their part, the European Research Group (ERG) caucus of around 80 Leave-supporting MPs, claims to have secured assurances that government policy has not changed and that the government still intends to leave the single market and customs union. If George Osborne, who continues to revel in his new role as editor of the Evening Standard, is to be believed, May’s ministers are divided between the ‘Sensibles’ and the ‘Creationists’ when it comes to Brexit. The situation in party and country is messy enough before you throw Brexit into the mix. And Boris Johnson is, well, Boris Johnson, and his role as 2016’s Brexit cheerleader makes him among the most divisive figures in British politics. Home Secretary Amber Rudd only clung on to her Hastings constituency by 346 votes. But the most likely contenders are flawed. The Tories would happily dispatch May tomorrow if there was a viable alternative candidate. Of the four ministers in post last week, only the Secretary of State, David Davis, remains, hardly a vote of confidence in an already struggling and overburdened department. Lower down the ministerial food-chain, however, the Exiting the EU department (De圎U) has been overhauled. This weakness explains why May has kept her cabinet virtually unchanged, with the exception of bringing back Michael Gove – whom she brutally sacked last summer – as Environment minister. She is now the definition of a lame-duck leader. A DUP deal will still only leave May with a majority of 4. They will expect more money for the province, and customs union membership to achieve a ‘soft border’ with the Republic of Ireland. The expected ‘confidence and supply’ coalition with the Democratic Unionists (DUP) will be fragile and expensive: decades spent haggling over the fine print of the Northern Irish peace process have made the DUP tough negotiators.
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