Theresa May has reshuffled her cabinet after a series of high-profile resignations over her Brexit plans, but faces a tough task trying to unite the competing power bases.
The soft Brexiters
When Theresa May brought her full cabinet to the Chequers summit last Friday, it was a statement of intent that a hard Brexit, which jeopardised UK businesses’ supply chains and the unity of the UK over the border in Northern Ireland, had no majority among her ministers.
One of the most urgent voices in recent weeks has been Greg Clark, the business secretary, who made the case not only for frictionless movement of goods but on the need for a mobility framework for UK workers to be able to fulfil overseas service contracts.
Others who have urged such an approach include the chancellor, Philip Hammond, Karen Bradley, the Northern Ireland secretary, and David Gauke, the justice secretary.
Members: David Lidington, Philip Hammond, David Gauke, Damian Hinds, Greg Clark, James Brokenshire, Alun Cairns, David Mundell, Karen Bradley, Matt Hancock, Claire Perry
The new loyalists
This powerful new group is comprised of remainers and leavers, but ones who have decided their best trajectory is staunch loyalty to the prime minister.
What links many of them is their ambition. Most powerful among them is the environment secretary, Michael Gove, a leading light of the leave campaign who is one of the cabinet’s leading Eurosceptics. But he has publicly backed the Chequers’ deal and urged colleagues to accept it, coming out to bat for May on the airwaves on Sunday.
Jeremy Hunt, the new foreign secretary, is a former remainer but now born-again Brexiter who was also dispatched by No 10 to give the media response to David Davis’s resignation.
Two new members of the cabinet fall into this category. Dominic Raab, Davis’s replacement, a cerebral Brexiter given a big promotion by May, said he was looking forward to “unflinchingly” implementing the Chequers plan as Brexit secretary. Geoffrey Cox, the new attorney general, spoke forcefully as a converted leaver in favour of the plan at the 1922 committee of backbench MPs – and got his promotion just hours later.
Chris Grayling, the transport secretary, and Sajid Javid, the home secretary, are also in this mix – both made it clear to Boris Johnson ahead of the Chequers’ summit that they did not want to seen as part of his faction. This group is prepared to back May for now, but probably only as long as she does not come under serious threat.
Members: Michael Gove, Jeremy Hunt, Dominic Raab, Geoffrey Cox, Gavin Williamson, Chris Grayling, Sajid Javid, Liz Truss, Baroness Evans, Julian Smith, Jeremy Wright, Caroline Nokes, Brandon Lewis
The sceptics
There remain inside the cabinet some Brexiter members with serious reservations about the Chequers deal, but who have decided to back the agreed plan.
Among them are the leader of the House of Commons, Andrea Leadsom, and the work and pensions secretary, Esther McVey, who both spoke privately about their dissatisfaction with the deal at Chequers, as well as the international development secretary, Penny Mordaunt, and Liam Fox, the international trade secretary.
Fox was given personal assurances by No 10 ahead of the summit, which seemed to at least temporarily assuage his fears about the impact of the plan on striking trade deals.
Publicly, the group has been supportive even through the resignations, while also underlining areas where they say they cannot accept any further concessions during negotiations with the EU.
“I judge this by our red lines as Brexiteers,” Leadsom said. “Are we leaving the EU? Are we taking back control? Are we leaving the customs union and the single market? Will we get rid of free movement? And we will do all of those things.”
Members: Liam Fox, Penny Mordaunt, Esther McVey, Andrea Leadsom
