Brexit Secretary David Davis is planning to quit his role in the Cabinet in 2019 as rumours of Cabinet disharmony continue to overshadow the Conservative Party conference.
Mr Davis intends to ‘retire’ in 2019 and leave the transitional period of Britain’s exit from the European Union in the hands of Boris Johnson, who will take to the stage at the party conference on Tuesday.
The EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier needs a Brexit deal to be sorted ‘more’ than Mr Davis, the Brexit Secretary reportedly claimed, as he plans to step aside in June 2019 while Barnier will still be in his post, The Telegraph and The Sun report.
Mr Davis believes Brexit will be his ‘last big job’, and plans to ‘retire’ in 2019 and will leave transition to ‘someone else… Boris Johnson’.
Brexit Secretary David Davis is planning to quit his role in the Cabinet in 2019 as rumours of Cabinet disharmony continue to overshadow the Conservative Party conference
Sources close to the Brexit Secretary, who also address party faithful, played down the comments.
They said: ‘This was a lighthearted remark underlining the fact that we will be leaving the EU in March 2019.’
Pollster Sir Lynton Crosby is reportedly being lined up by Amber Rudd, so he can help her prepare for the next election.
The Times reports that Ms Rudd, who has a majority of just 346, wants to shore up her own seat and work with the man who brought Mr Johnson mayoral success – despite him also being involved in Theresa May’s disasterous General Election campaign.
The Conservative Party conference has been marred by reports of infighting and Cabinet rifts following Mr Johnson’s newspaper articles about Brexit.
He claimed that Britain’s transitional Brexit deal should last no longer than two years, something which Mrs May has refused to nail down.
Mr Davis reportedly wants to leave the Brexit transition period in the hands of Boris Johnson
Mr Johnson said he was in complete agreement with the vision for Brexit set out by Mrs May in her speech in Florence.
He told BBC Newsnight: ‘Contrary to some of the stuff that I notice has been knocking around in the media, you have a cabinet that is totally united behind every comma, every full stop, every syllable of the prime minister’s excellent Florence speech.
Yet Philip Hammond said that no one in the Cabinet was unsackable while former Cabinet member Nicky Morgan said the former Mayor of London ‘had to go’ if he did not show loyalty to the party.