Theresa May reacted quickly to the announcement of the resignation of David Davis last night by appointing former Minister for Housing Dominic Raab to the post of minister responsible for Brexit on Monday.
Dominic Raab has little ministerial experience. At 44, he has held only two junior posts in Justice and Housing but he has the advantage of being a “pragmatic brexiteer” that will be easier for Theresa May to manage than David Davis, who resigned because, in his view, the government was ready to make too many concessions to the EU.
For Theresa May now, the priority is to extinguish the fire as soon as possible so that the dispute does not spread among the brexiteers.
The Prime Minister has to go to the members of Parliament on Monday afternoon to present the new plan, and later in the evening, she will have to face her own party again to try to “sell” the proposal.
But the meeting is likely to be extremely stormy as several pro-Brexit Conservative MPs have already rejected the plan as a whole and threaten to withdraw their trust, a rebellion that could precipitate the fall of her government.
Everything will depend in the coming hours on the reaction of the other hard brexiteer ministers, in particular that of Boris Johnson. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, who described Theresa May’s solution as “turd” on Friday, while agreeing to support it, has still not commented on the resignation of his colleague.
Dominic Raab will therefore have the difficult task of representing the United Kingdom in the negotiations for leaving the European Union. The European Commission has already announced that the resignation of David Davis is not a problem. “We will continue to negotiate goodwill with Prime Minister May and British negotiators,” said spokeswoman Margaritis Schinas.
