Theresa May is preparing to face her newly reshuffled cabinet following the shock resignations of David Davis and Boris Johnson.
With the Tories engulfed in “Brexit turmoil”, the Prime Minister has made “drastic” changes to her cabinet team and has warned her party that it must “unite or face the prospect of Jeremy Corbyn in power”, the BBC says.
Former health secretary Jeremy Hunt has been chosen to replace Boris Johnson as foreign secretary.
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The appointment has led some senior Tory Eurosceptics to accuse May of running a “Remainer government”, with all four “great offices of state” - PM, chancellor, home secretary and foreign secretary - now occupied by ministers who campaigned against Brexit during the 2016 referendum.
Hunt has since said he is a convert to the Brexit cause, but the sceptics remain unconvinced.
In his first public statement as foreign secretary, Hunt said he would be standing “four square” behind the prime minister “so that we can get through an agreement with the European Union based on what was agreed by the Cabinet last week at Chequers”.
Elsewhere, Matt Hancock has staged a “significant political comeback”, trading in his role as culture secretary to become the new health secretary, The Daily Telegraph reports. Hancock, a prominent backer of Remain during the EU referendum, had been “written off” by some in Westminster after May became PM, the newspaper adds.
Jeremy Wright, the former attorney general and another Remain campaigner, replaces Hancock as culture secretary, while Dominic Raab was announced as the new Brexit secretary yesterday morning. Meanwhile, Geoffrey Cox QC, MP for Torridge and West Devon, has secured his first cabinet post, as attorney general.
Here is May’s cabinet, with the new posts in bold:
- Theresa May, prime minister
- Philip Hammond, chancellor
- Jeremy Hunt, foreign secretary
- Sajid Javid, home secretary
- Dominic Raab, Brexit secretary
- David Mundell, secretary of state for Scotland
- Gavin Williamson, secretary of state for defence
- Baroness Evans, lord privy seal and leader of the House of Lords
- Michael Gove, secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs
- Penny Mordaunt, secretary of state for international development
- Chris Grayling, secretary of state for transport
- Liam Fox, secretary of state for international trade and president of the Board of Trade
- Andrea Leadsom, lord president of the council and leader of the House of Commons
- Jeremy Wright, culture secretary
- Elizabeth Truss, chief secretary to the Treasury
- Julian Smith, parliamentary secretary to the Treasury (chief whip)
- Greg Clark, secretary of state for business, energy and industrial strategy
- Karen Bradley, secretary of state for Northern Ireland
- David Gauke, justice secretary
- Matt Hancock, secretary of state for health and social care
- James Brokenshire, secretary of state for housing, communities and local government
- Brandon Lewis, Tory party chairman
- David Lidington, minister for the Cabinet Office
- Caroline Noakes, minister of state for immigration
- Geoffrey Cox, attorney general
- Claire Perry, minister of state at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
- Esther Mcvey, secretary of state for work and pensions
- Damian Hinds, secretary of state for education
- Alun Cairns, secretary of state for Wales
