As the leadership race draws to a close (less than a week to go now) MPs have started to follow in Amber Rudd’s footsteps and more openly pitch for Cabinet jobs. The most blatant of which being Mark Harper this morning…
Key to delivering Brexit will be getting Stormont up and running as well as ensuring a better relationship with the Republic of Ireland. For this, the next Prime Minister will need a serious, credible figure as their Northern Ireland Secretary. pic.twitter.com/nr7PQJxe43
— Mark Harper (@Mark_J_Harper) July 17, 2019
After his brief leadership pitch, the former Chief Whip is clearly looking to get back into the Cabinet, clearly aiming for the low hanging fruit role of Northern Ireland Secretary. Few want it and the incumbent is sure to be one of the first out the door…
Harper is also following in the video footsteps of Liz Truss who made a slightly more subtle pitch at the start of the month focusing on business. She’s now widely tipped to lead a souped up Business department. #LizForBiz
Why I’m backing @BorisJohnson to unleash British business and get us out of the EU by 31 October. #BackBoris 👇 pic.twitter.com/x5NZT7pHpU
— Liz Truss (@trussliz) July 2, 2019
We’ll start finding out if these pitches are successful in just a week’s time…
After the Chequers summit the story was one of unity and consensus, with the agreement reached by the Brexit sub-committee last week holding until today’s Cabinet meeting. Yet during today’s talks senior Brexiters say there was some “drift” away from the language of the Chequers agreement, with a few “tweaks” that appear to be trying to reset the government’s approach towards convergence with the EU. The James Forsyth App reports that an idea was proposed to make a “binding agreement” to align with EU rules and regulations in certain sectors. David Davis, for the second time in a week, was “the hero of the hour” in fighting back against the suggestion. Where did this new alignment idea come from? Those in the room detect the hand of Jeremy Heywood and Olly Robbins, May’s troublesome civil servants, trying to move the Cabinet away from the agreed position. A Cabinet source says: “It seems to be incessant tinkering and manipulation by the Cabinet Secretary and his minions when everything should be focussed on what the Cabinet agreed at Chequers”. We will see when May speaks tomorrow whether Heywood and Robbins were successful…
Philip Hammond has confirmed to the Treasury select committee that the Cabinet still hasn’t discussed what the Brexit end state will look like, i.e. whether it will be the convergence non-Brexit preferred by him, Jeremy Heywood and Olly Robbins, or a real Brexit in which we properly diverge from the EU. It has been 18 months since the referendum, it’s mad the Cabinet has not even discussed what Brexit Britain will look like. If the government has no idea on the end state, are they even ready to move onto the next stage of talks?
Boris Johnson & Chancellor Philip Hammond leave side by side after the Cabinet meeting, which lasted around 2.5 hours. No word from either. pic.twitter.com/ZimOPksPua
— Richard Wheeler (@richard_kaputt) September 21, 2017
Boris and Hammond clearly made to walk out together from this morning’s two and a half hour Cabinet as some show of unity. “Is he your new best friend?” heckles the BBC’s Chris Mason…
All explained here…
