Theresa May: ‘I don’t want a Cabinet of yes-men’

Theresa May has announced she doesn’t want a Cabinet of “yes-men” as she again defended her decision not to sack Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, whose Brexit “red lines” and manifesto are dominating this week’s Tory party conference.

The Prime Minister stressed the importance of having “different voices around the table so you can discuss matters” during an interview with the BBC Radio 4 Today programme this morning - hours ahead of what The Daily Telegraph called Johnson’s “let the lion roar” speech to Conservatives.

If the PM thought the BBC interview would end the matter, she was mistaken.

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Manfred Weber, the German leader of the largest political group in the European Parliament, told MEPs that the PM needs to remove Johnson to provide greater certainty on Brexit. “The question for the moment is, who shall I call in London?” Weber said. “Who speaks for the Government – Theresa May, Boris Johnson, or even David Davis?”

Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president, also warned that Britain’s warring Cabinet was lacking clarity during Brexit discussions, The Guardian reports.

The London Evening Standard said May would be too busy doing a round of TV interviews to listen to Boris Johnson’s address at the conference in Manchester this afternoon. She was, however, in the audience for Chancellor Philip Hammond's speech yesterday and for Johnson’s address last year.

A row has been brewing since Johnson published his 4,000-word Brexit manifesto in the Telegraph last month. On the eve of the conference, he then set out a series of “red lines” in a newspaper interview that “cut across May’s plans for a post-Brexit transition”, writes The Scotsman.

Is May afraid to sack Johnson for fear he might launch a leadership bid from the backbenches? Perhaps.

Sky News senior political correspondent Beth Rigby says that when the time comes to leave the EU, “she’ll need Johnson – and Gove – to sell it to the country”.