U.K.'s top Brexit official quits in protest

(Image credit: Joel Rouse - Crown Copyright via Getty Images)

last updated 9 July 2018

Brexit Secretary David Davis resigned on Sunday, leaving British Prime Minister Theresa May without the most senior official in charge of negotiating an exit from the European Union.

On Friday, May said her plan for Brexit had the backing of her government, but in his resignation letter, Davis said the proposals for future trade "will leave us in at best a weak negotiating position, and possibly an inescapable one." May's government is now on shaky ground, with two other ministers from the Department for Exiting the European Union following Davis' lead and also resigning Sunday.

Davis was strongly pro-Brexit, and May wrote in a response to his letter that she was sorry to see him go "when we are only eight months from the date set in law when the United Kingdom will leave the European Union."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.