Theresea May, The British Prime Minister, was against her country leaving the European Union before the vote…
Her voters chose to leave the Union….
The vote has been second guessed as the reality of the action has sunk in….
May wants a soft break….
Others, including the departed Foreign Sec want a hard one….
The English political arm wrestling continues …..
Boris Johnson resigned as Britain’s foreign secretary on Monday, becoming the second cabinet minister to quit in less than 24 hours in protest over plans from Prime Minister Theresa May to soften the economic impact of British withdrawal from the European Union.
Mr. Johnson’s departure followed that of David Davis, who quit as Brexit secretary late Sunday, and deepens the mood of crisis gripping Mrs. May’s government three days after she thought she had won agreement from her cabinet on a Brexit plan.
The public face of the 2016 campaign that persuaded Britons to quit the European Union, known as Brexit, Mr. Johnson is perhaps the most high-profile advocate of leaving the bloc, and his departure highlights the depth of the bitter divisions in Mrs. May’s government.
On several occasions, Mr. Johnson had appeared to undermine Mrs. May’s strategy, and in comments that were recently leaked, he described her government as lacking “guts,” unfavorably comparing the prime minister’s negotiating style to that of President Trump.
After Mr. Davis’s surprise resignation, there was an ominous silence Monday morning from Mr. Johnson, who was scheduled to host a diplomatic meeting in London to discuss the western Balkans.
Then, around 3 p.m., Mrs. May’s office issued a statement that said simply: “This afternoon, the prime minister accepted the resignation of Boris Johnson as foreign secretary. His replacement will be announced shortly. The prime minister thanks Boris for his work.”
Conservative lawmakers appealed to their colleagues not to demand a confidence vote in Mrs. May’s leadership, a move that could be set off by just 48 of her party’s lawmakers — though it would take many more to dislodge her. Earlier, Mr. Davis told the BBC that he was not encouraging a challenge to Mrs. May, and ruled himself out as a contender if there were one.
But the resignation of Mr. Johnson reignited the debate just as Mrs. May was hoping that she had restored some stability to the government by announcing that the pro-Brexit minister Dominic Raab would replace Mr. Davis…..
Note….
There IS a underlying feeling that Putin and the Russians would like nothing netter than the EU divided …..Trump seems to also go along with that feeling in pushing trade tariffs against the EU and the Brits and knocking NATO….
It’s been hard for me (and a lot of other people) to follow the most recent struggles over Brexit negotiations within the Cabinet and within the leaderships of the Conservative Party and their parliamentary allies the Democratic Unionist Party (Northern Ireland).
Here, however, is a little background.
Boris Johnson, a maverick news commentator, was a Tory Mayor of Greater London between the Labour mayors “Red” Ken Livingstone and Saddiq Khan. As Mayor, he gave a famous response to ex-Gov. Mitt Romney’s implied criticism of London’s security preparations for the 2012 Olympic Games (which happened to go off quite well without any major violent incidents).
He was later one of the most prominent leaders of the Brexit campaign, and — after David Cameron quit his posts as Prime Minister and leader of the parliamentary Conservative Party in the wake of Brexit’s victory in the June 2016 referendum — was a leading pro-Brexit candidate for Cameron’s posts, competing against (among others) Home Secretary Theresa May, who had been mildly supporting the Remain (anti-Brexit) side. After Theresa May won the premiership, she helped balance off her Cabinet by appointing Johnson as Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the post he has just quit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Johnson
¶ For those who might wonder about the relatively-informal appearances in the photo, it was taken when the Cabinet tried to hash out their differences this weekend at Chequers, which has been the Prime Minister’s country retreat from No. 10 Downing Street, bequeathed to the nation for this purpose after World War I by two private citizens. It is, in other words, roughly equivalent to the Presidential retreat at Camp David.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chequers
Thank You DSD, as always for your backgrounders….
But James, you told us they would work this out. But they haven’t now have they, and the May government looks like it might be gone before Trump walks his fat rump through their door.
Yes Keith….
I DID say they would work it out…..
They will….
When they do?
I’ll remind ya….
And Trump seems to be doing Putins dirty work in trying to destabilize Europe ….
A broken clock is……
A government is about to fall over this issue, but hey, they’ work it out.
This is a classic example of you typing before you think.
Ok
But the Brexit deal IS STILL in the making
If it doesn’t work out?
THEN I would be wrong….