The Tories set to re-introduce Fox hunting with hounds if the International Trade Secretary doesn’t wind his neck in
Liam Fox and Boris Johnson locked in feud over who controls Britain's foreign policy https://t.co/lmXFdd3A7O
— Telegraph Politics (@TelePolitics) August 13, 2016
Taking the 10/1 on Liam Fox being the first cabinet minister to leave the cabinet looks tempting.
Today’s Sunday Telegraph has a story which says
Liam Fox and Boris Johnson are locked in a bitter Whitehall feud over who controls key parts of Britain’s foreign policy, a leaked letter seen by The Telegraph reveals.
Just weeks after the two men joined the Government, Dr Fox sent Mr Johnson the terse letter, which he copied to Theresa May, effectively demanding that the Foreign Office be broken up.
Dr Fox, suggested that British trade with other countries would not “flourish” if responsibility for future policy remained with the Foreign Office.
He also listed a series of economic statistics which called into question the Foreign Office’s ability to boost Britain’s economic ties with other countries and suggested that Mr Johnson focused instead on “diplomacy and security” including overseeing MI6 and GCHQ.
The Foreign Secretary is understood to have firmly rejected Dr Fox’s demands and Whitehall sources claim that the Prime Minister is “unimpressed with this sort of carrying on”.
These shenanigans by Liam Fox are the sort of things I think Mrs May will not tolerate for long, coupled with his comments on the EU customs union a few weeks ago, where it could be argued Fox exceeded his remit, Downing Street was forced to clarify his comments and say no decision had been made.
This has not been an auspicious start as International Trade Secretary for Liam Fox. On Friday his department issued and retracted a press release that said Brexit will lead to ‘UK businesses could be left facing crippling tariffs on EU deals‘. So far he and his department are displaying all the competence of a man who is unable to find a cup of water whilst in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
Mrs May knows Brexit needs to be successful for the country and for her long term political future, she won’t tolerate this kind of conduct from Liam Fox for much longer. His conduct so far will also cause him problems with his fellow cabinet ministers, and he needs their support to be a success.
Ladbrokes are offering 10/1 on Fox being the first cabinet minister to leave the cabinet, it looks very tempting.
As an aside, if Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party was a decent opposition, they could have so much fun exploiting things like this.