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Graphic shows departures from Theresa May’s Cabinet since November 2017.
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BREXIT

Theresa May’s resignations and sackings

By Duncan Mil

July 10, 2018 - The resignation of British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, one day after the departure of Brexit Secretary David Davis, has plunged Prime Minister Theresa May’s government into turmoil.

Key to the resignations of Johnson and Davis was the prime minister’s plan to accept a so-called “common rulebook.”

Papers handed to ministers ahead of last Friday’s crunch Chequers Cabinet summit included details of a common rulebook for farm produce and other goods expected to cover both the EU and UK following Brexit.

Currently, EU member states have to follow the same standards and regulations as part of the single market rulebook on goods and services. May wants to maintain sections of this rulebook to allow “frictionless trade at the border” after Brexit.

In a stinging two-page resignation letter, Johnson warned that the UK was now in the “ludicrous position of asserting that we must accept huge amounts” of EU law “without changing an iota” and without being able to influence the rules. He added: “That [Brexit] dream is dying, suffocated by needless self-doubt.”

Elsewhere in the letter, the former London mayor said: “It is as though we are sending our vanguard into battle with the white flags fluttering above them.”

Sources
PUBLISHED: 10/07/2018; STORY: Graphic News; PICTURES: Associated Press, Chris McAndrew
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