Brexit crisis threatens British PM Theresa May as Johnson resigns

A Brexit rebellion is threatening to bring down the British Conservative government, with PM Theresa May fighting for her political life.

British Prime Minister Theresa May talks with fromer British foreign minister Boris Johnson.

A Brexit rebellion is threatening to bring down the British Conservative government, with Prime Minister Theresa May fighting for her political life after foreign secretary Boris Johnson resigned late last night on the eve of a NATO summit.

Brexit secretary David Davis resigned earlier yesterday, along with a junior Brexit minister, Steve Baker, plunging the Conservative Party into crisis just days after crucial talks at the Prime Minister’s country retreat, Chequers, during which Mrs May insisted on a ­watered-down “soft’’ Brexit that keeps Britain tied to many EU regulations.

And this morning, the Parliamentary Private secretary Chris Green also resigned saying the negotiations have suggested the country would not really be leaving the EU.

The tensions of the past year over whether to prop up a seriously weakened Prime Minister or risk electoral defeat yesterday ­finally reached a crescendo, although she moved quickly to replace Mr Johnson with Jeremy Hunt, formerly health secretary.

Mr Hunt has been in charge of the controversial health portfolio for seven years, during which doctors went on strike, for the first time in 40 years.

But the a self-made millionaire who speaks several languages, has been one of the few MPs to have switched sides during the bitter Brexit developments. Initially he was a Remainer, but said he was now supporting Brexit because of the arrogance of the EU’s approach to the Brexit negotiations.

As a leader of the campaign to take Britain out of the EU, Mr Johnson had been under pressure to act after the resignation of Mr Davis. But Mr Johnson said Mrs May’s latest strategy, which gives the European courts oversight of British trade with the EU, was “polishing a turd’’.

Many of those in the Remain camp are hoping the crisis may be a tipping point that could even bring about the end of Brexit, although the EU has said it is legally ­impossible to reverse measures ­already undertaken.

Mrs May was facing the risk of a no-confidence motion overnight as her party tries to hold on to power and pressure builds for a tougher Brexit position that many Conservative members and backbenchers have been clamouring for.

Mrs May was due to attend a NATO summit tomorrow, alongside US President Donald Trump, who is to demand European countries increase defence spending as the future of US involvement in the security ­alliance comes into question.

Mr Trump has little affection for some of the European leaders, particularly German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and the summit — along with next week’s meeting between Mr Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki — could mark a shift in geopolitical power.

Mrs May had hoped Britain could benefit from some American moral support in its battle with the EU, helping to smooth talks with French President Emmanuel Macron over the trade issue and assist in the souring diplomatic ­relations with Russia over the novichok poisoning, which resulted in the death of a British woman, Dawn Sturgess, on Sunday night.

But Mr Trump is to face a series of huge protest rallies — including a blimp of “baby Trump’’ that was approved by the Labour mayor of London, Sadiq Khan — when he ­arrives in the country later this week to meet Mrs May and to have tea with the Queen at Windsor Castle.

Mr Trump’s political and ­financial pressure on European leaders over the coming week is unlikely to ease the EU insistence that Britain cannot cherry-pick certain concessions for a trade deal, increasing the odds that there will be a no-deal Brexit.

The problem for the Tories has been finding a senior minister willing to challenge for the prime ministership and is capable of uniting a bitterly divided cabinet, with some ministers eager to ­retain trading close to the EU and others wanting to be free and sever all ties to Europe.

Dominic Raab, a former housing minister, was last night named as the new Brexit Minister, but Downing Street sources said the real power rested with the Prime Minister’s Europe adviser, Olly Robbins. Mr Raab, well known for once calling feminists “obnoxious bigots’’, had supported Brexit but will rely on Mr Robbins to help negotiate with the EU leadership.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, a Conservative MP who leads of bloc of about 60 Eurosceptic MPs, said without Mr Davis’s imprimatur it would be difficult for Mrs May’s proposals for a “soft” Brexit to gain parliamentary support.

“If the Brexit secretary could not support them they cannot genuinely be delivering Brexit,” he said.

Nearly 18 months after Brexit was formally kickstarted, Britain still has no clear policy on how an exit from the EU will be achieved.

Mr Davis quit the government telling Mrs May that her policies and tactics could leave the UK in a “weak and inescapable” negotiating position.

He said it looked “less and less likely” that Britain would leave the customs union and single market.

He said the contentious issue of Mrs May’s plan was to have a “common rule book’’ written by the EU that applied regulatory control over British trade.

“It is certainly not returning control of our laws in any real sense,’’ he said, adding that it would be “very, very difficult for the UK not to agree with what the EU was doing’’.

He said Mrs May’s Brexit plan offered the European Court of Justice the final say.

Mr Davis said that it was not his intent to spark a leadership challenge but rather put pressure on Mrs May not to make further concessions to Europe.

The Conservative Brexit MP Andrea Jenkyns publicly called for Mrs May to be replaced.

“The time has come that we need a Brexiteer prime minister, really — somebody who clearly believes in Brexit and is really prepared to deliver what the people voted for,’’ she told the BBC.

Some Brexiteers fear that Britain will have to make even more concessions to Europe, particularly in the “red line’’ area of migration to strike a deal before October’s planned summit to arrange an orderly exit on March 30.

But if this upheaval eventually leads to Mrs May’s resignation and a subsequent general election, the Labour opposition has a confusing Brexit strategy and hasn’t made it clear whether it even supports Brexit.

Yesterday Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said Mrs May had no authority and was incapable of delivering Brexit, but has failed to lay out his preferred position. He said of Mrs May: “With her government in chaos … it’s clear she’s more interested in hanging on for her own sake than serving the people of our country.”