The new prime minister “acted decisively” in sacking more than half the cabinet, the incoming chief secretary to the Treasury, Rishi Sunak, has said, as Boris Johnson commenced the first meeting of his top team.
Johnson launched a ruthless clearout of Theresa May’s frontbench on Wednesday, packing his team with Vote Leave veterans and rightwing free marketers.
The job of home secretary went to Priti Patel, who advocated the return of capital punishment as recently as 2011, and the Treasury to the Thatcher devotee Sajid Javid. Dominic Raab, who previously described feminists as “obnoxious bigots”, is the new foreign secretary.
The following people are in Boris Johnson's first cabinet:
Sajid Javid, chancellor
Dominic Raab, foreign secretary
Priti Patel, home secretary
Michael Gove, chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
Robert Buckland QC, lord chancellor and justice secretary
Stephen Barclay, Brexit secretary
Ben Wallace, defence secretary
Matthew Hancock, health secretary
Andrea Leadsom, business secretary
Liz Truss, international trade secretary
Amber Rudd, work and pensions secretary
Gavin Williamson, education secretary
Theresa Villiers, environment secretary
Robert Jenrick, housing secretary
Grant Shapps, transport secretary
Julian Smith, Northern Ireland secretary
Alister Jack, Scotland secretary
Alun Cairns, Wales secretary
Baroness Evans, leader of the House of Lords
Nicky Morgan, DCMS secretary
Alok Sharma, international development secretary
James Cleverly, party chair and minister without portfolio
These people also attend full cabinet meetings:
Rishi Sunak, chief secretary to the Treasury
Jacob Rees-Mogg, leader of the House of Commons
Mark Spencer, chief whip
Geoffrey Cox QC, attorney general
Kwasai Kwarteng, energy minister
Oliver Dowden, paymaster general and minister for the Cabinet Office
Jake Berry, minister of state at the Cabinet Office
Esther McVey, housing minister
Jo Johnson, universities minister
Brandon Lewis, security minister
“The prime minister said yesterday from Downing Street that he wanted to show strong leadership, act decisively and change this country for the better and that’s what we saw yesterday,” Sunak told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
“He wants a cabinet that reflects modern Britain and that’s exactly what we got. It draws on talent from across the parliamentary party in terms of women and ethnic minorities. It better reflects the country that we wish to serve, but crucially it … supports the prime minister’s priority to deliver Brexit by the end of October.”
Sunak said conversations between Johnson and outgoing cabinet ministers that had been reported to him were “warm and collegial”.
Opening the first meeting of his cabinet on Thursday morning, Johnson reportedly told the room it was “wonderful to see this new team assembled here” that respected the “depth and breadth of talent in our extraordinary party”.
“As you all know we have a momentous task ahead of us, at a pivotal moment in our country’s history,” he said. “We are now committed, all of us, to leaving the European Union on 31 October or indeed earlier – no ifs, no buts. But we are not going to wait until 31 October to get on with a fantastic new agenda for our country, and that means delivering the priorities of the people.”
A cabinet reshuffle
The first task of any new PM involves rewarding some loyal allies and disappointing more. Several Johnson loyalists have had their eye on the post of chancellor, but only one can do it. A complete clearout of May’s remain-minded ministers provided plenty of opportunity to reward the Brexit believers though.
Brexit
The issue that will define a Johnson premiership. He has promised to rapidly renegotiate almost all of May’s departure deal, ditching the Irish backstop border guarantee policy – something that would seem a huge task over any timescale, let alone little more than 12 weeks, a fair proportion of which is taken up by a summer break. If this fails, he will be set on a no-deal departure for 31 October, and a likely huge clash with MPs.
Iran
If Brexit wasn’t enough, a new Johnson government must immediately take steps to make sure he doesn’t begin his time in No 10 with a slide into war. The situation in the gulf is complex, fast-moving and hugely dangerous. Johnson did not cover himself in glory as foreign secretary, especially over Iran. It will be his task to prove he has learned.
Managing parliament and Tory MPs
Johnson will start as PM with a working Commons majority of four, thanks to the DUP, but within weeks it is likely to be down to three if as expected the Liberal Democrats win in the Brecon and Radnorshire byelection. If this wasn’t tricky enough, a small but significant section of Tory MPs openly detest Johnson, and will not want to help him out - and with his cabinet sackings, the ‘Gaukward squad’ of former senior cabinet members set on blocking a no-deal Brexit swelled in ranks.
Loosening the purse strings
Such was the fiscal largesse on display from both Johnson and Jeremy Hunt during the hustings process that much as he will seek to kick any decisions towards an autumn budget, voters – especially Tory members – will be expecting both tax cuts and more spending on areas such as education and the police.
Everything non-Brexit
This might sound glib, but there is a lot to consider – during the three-plus years of Brexit introversion May’s government failed to properly grasp any of a series of long-term, pressing national problems: the crisis in social care; the future of the NHS; a climate emergency; the increasingly insecure future of work; a broken housing market; rampant poverty, including among many working people. This is a huge workload for any new administration.
Being prime ministerial
Critics might say this is Johnson’s single biggest challenge. The leadership process has shown that while he endlessly harked back to supposed successes as London mayor – an often ceremonial role with relatively few powers – Johnson was notably quieter about his period as foreign secretary.
Being prime minister is like the latter, to a factor of 10 – a never-ending succession of red boxes containing vital documents, of urgent briefings, of a whole system hanging on your decisions. Johnson has a tendency to ignore advice, pluck statistics out of the air and rely on sudden, cheap glibness. Curbing these long habits will be a daily struggle - his adopting the acronym 'Dude' in his victory speech shows just how hard it is for him.
Peter Walker Political correspondent
Johnson will address parliament for the first time as prime minister later on Thursday, setting out his plans for government.
According to the Sun, he has chosen to move into the four-bedroom flat at No 11 Downing Street with his partner, Carrie Symonds, leaving Javid the smaller apartment at No 10.
Also speaking to the Today programme, the MP Nick Boles, who quit the Conservative party in March over its “failure to compromise” on Brexit, said the cabinet appointments proved that “the Conservative party has now been fully taken over, top to bottom, by the hard right”.
“They are basically turning themselves into the Brexit party in order to hold off Nigel Farage,” he said. Boles said that while two of the great offices of state were now held by people from minority ethnic backgrounds, “the individuals concerned are from the hard right, they are Thatcherites, they are no-deal Brexiters”.
Responding to Boles’s comments later on the programme, the former Conservative leader and Johnson supporter Iain Duncan Smith said it was wrong to equate a pro-Brexit position with far-right politics. “If you look at the people that support Brexit, it’s a complete mix – from people who are communists on one side to people who are conservatives, [and] you’ve got Nigel Farage on the other side.”
He said London-born Patel had been given her new job because it was important to have people in the cabinet who were committed to delivering Brexit and because she represented “the changing nature of Britain”. “She’s a woman and she’s also come from the Indian subcontinent,” he said.
Speaking to the BBC, the former French European affairs minister Nathalie Loiseau said Johnson’s election would not change the EU’s position. “You have changed your prime minister, but we have not changed our minds,” she said.
“What is within the withdrawal agreement is consistent with priorities we have in common, the fate of our citizens, the need to protect the Good Friday agreement – that there is no hard border on the island of Ireland, that we protect the single market and the fact that you have financial commitments that need to be settled. So nothing will disappear just because there is someone else in Downing Street.”
