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I don't follow UK politics much, but I did get interested during the Brexit referendum two years ago. Back then, the main names I recall are David Cameron, Boris Johnson, and Nigel Farage, and maybe also Corbyn I think. At least, those were the names you constantly read about in the papers. I don't recall ever hearing the name "Theresa May".

I also know that Boris Johnson and Farage were the ones that were mainly pro Brexit and Corbyn and Cameron were against it.

Then the Brexiters won the referendum, and now that the negotiations are at the latter stage, I am again getting interested in UK politics. However, what I don't understand is, where did May come from? Why is she leading Brexit negotiations all of a sudden, when she played no significant role of promoting Brexit during the referendum? And I'm not seeing Farage or Johnson anywhere? What happened?

In short: why aren't the main endorsers of Brexit, the ones we kept hearing about during the campaign in 2016, not the ones leading the negotiations?

Fiksdal
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Frederic
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    Short answer IMHO: (non-)sincerity. – Drux Nov 27 '18 at 05:44
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    I don't think there's enough internet left to answer this one. – Strawberry Nov 27 '18 at 09:59
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    Brexiteer politicians made promises they knew they could never keep to get into power. When the time came to deliver on those promises, they resigned. – Ian Kemp Nov 27 '18 at 10:21
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    @Strawberry "not enough internet"? I thought the answer would be one-liner: "Because she is the prime minister." – ypercubeᵀᴹ Nov 27 '18 at 12:15
  • @ypercubeᵀᴹ And how did that come to be? – Kjeld Schmidt Nov 27 '18 at 14:35
  • If you can followJaney's accent, I think this summarizes the situation well: https://youtu.be/QC8dht3AmPg – copper.hat Nov 27 '18 at 15:38
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    Is that relevant to the question? ("Why is May in charge of Brexit negotiations?") She is the prime minister, she is in charge (or put whoever she likes in charge) In any case, I forgot to put a smile after my first comment. There is surely not enough internet to answer the 2nd part, about what happened to Brexiteers ;) – ypercubeᵀᴹ Nov 27 '18 at 15:40
  • In GB, people vote for the Parliament which then votes for a PM which leads the government and also the negotiations. PM happened to be Theresa May because others didn't get enough votes or didn't stand. It's not a terribly complicated political system. – NoDataDumpNoContribution Nov 27 '18 at 21:31
  • @Trilarion That is not a very accurate description of how Parliament works. A better one is - people vote for the MP who will represent their constituency. The MPs organise themselves into parties. Parties have their own internal mechanisms for choosing a leader. The governing party will be the one which commands a majority or in the case of a minority, the one which can put together a majority coalition. The leader of the governing party becomes the PM. Most of this is by convention rather than legally binding constitutional laws, so deviations are theoretically possible. – JBentley Nov 27 '18 at 22:46
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    "I had never heard the name Theresa May" she was the UKs Home Secretary in the David Cameron Government, a role concerned with internal matters such as Policing, National Security, Immigration and Citizenship within England and Wales. Although not a prominent role internationally a very important one within the country itself. – Sarriesfan Nov 27 '18 at 23:05
  • @Sarriesfan, not just home sec, but the longest serving home sec for 60 years. Career politician with no history of seeking the limelight or voting against the party line. – Separatrix Nov 28 '18 at 07:51
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    Cameron never endorsed Brexit. He tried to curry favour by allowing the populace to decide, and quickly regretted giving this gift. – Lightness Races in Orbit Nov 28 '18 at 10:26
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    @LightnessRacesinOrbit With a bit of goodwill one could even say that Cameron saw that the country was divided and wanted to heal the division by allowing the populace to decide. Apparently the majority wanted to be out one way or another and that is likely to happen now. Although he is not happy personally with it and probably regrets it, formally he has done something good for the whole country. Wouldn't he have pushed for the referendum, we now know that a majority would have kind of suffered. The only question is now when the next referendum will be? – NoDataDumpNoContribution Nov 28 '18 at 13:31
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    @Trilarion No, he saw that his party was divided and wanted to crush the people on the other side of the division by saying "Look -- the people agree with me!" Except it didn't work out, and the people agreed with them, instead. – David Richerby Nov 28 '18 at 14:27
  • @DavidRicherby Then one could say that even though he was not in favor of Brexit he at least accepted the possibility of Brexit. He could have just not called the referendum, but he had, which means he accepted the risk of it actually taking place. Kind of inconsistent approach (as the whole referendum business is in the UK). It's not the people who decide about what and if they can vote on. – NoDataDumpNoContribution Nov 28 '18 at 14:36
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    @Trilarion I don't think he did accept the possibility of Brexit: I don't think he'd have held the referendum if he thought there was any chance of losing it. – David Richerby Nov 28 '18 at 14:37
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    @Trilarion "With a bit of goodwill [..]" Exactly what he did, yes! (Except for the notion that following majority popular opinion is inherently "good for the whole country". Meh.) Wish people would stop consistently assuming bad faith from our politicians. It isn't fair. – Lightness Races in Orbit Nov 28 '18 at 15:17

4 Answers4

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In short all Leave candidates who put themselves forward for the PM job lost in a run-off to Andrea Leadsom (a Leave supporter) who then backed out. Major Leave supporters were given top level ministerial jobs, including arguably the most important one of Brexit Secretary - the Chief Negotiator position - and then resigned when they were unable to deliver anything that they personally approved of as a consequence of the negotiations.

In more depth...

Your best starting place is probably here; Conservative 2016 Leadership Campaign. It's difficult to assign motives if the individuals involved haven't made specific statements, and there's obviously a level of trust you'd have to place in those that have made them.

The key points that left Theresa May in charge are detailed in the Wikipedia link above, but can be best summarised as;

  • David Cameron calls a Referendum promising to stay on as PM no matter what the result.
  • Leave campaign fronted by Boris Johnson wins the Referendum
  • David Cameron resigns. Opening a Conservative Leadership election.
  • Theresa May is seen as David Cameron's choice for successor, Boris Johnson as leader of Leave is seen as the strongest Leave supporting Candidate.
  • Michael Gove declares himself a PM candidate, saying Boris is not up to the job.
  • Boris says the lack of Gove's support means he cannot run for PM job.
  • Conservative election rules mean a number of ballots are run until only two candidates are left. Realistically this would always mean one Remain supporter and one Leave supporter were the final candidates.
  • Theresa May (Remain) and Andrea Leadsom (Leave) are final candidates, which would go to Conservative Party member for a vote.
  • Leadsom withdraws from the race, leaving May to take the top slot "unopposed".

Since the referendum a number of high profile Leave campaigners have been involved in the negotiations. Brexiteer David Davis was the lead negotiator as Brexit Secretary for two years before resigning, while Boris Johnson was the Foreign Secretary for the same period. Dominic Raab, also a long time Leave supporter, then took over as Brexit Secretary and lead negotiator until the final Deal was agreed on the 14th November 2018. He then resigned stating his unhappiness with the deal.

As an aside, Nigel Farage was at the time the leader of UKIP, a separate political party with 2 MPs at the time, neither of which was Farage. There is no realistic way he would have been involved with running the country following the referendum. At best, he might have been offered a cabinet position, although I don't know if he could have remained an MEP under those circumstances. Party politics make that unlikely, because UKIP has been seen historically as a party drawing voters away from the Conservative party, making them unlikely to raise its profile in anyway, especially following the success of the Leave cause they had campaigned in favour of for such a long time.

Jontia
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    This is a good answer, but the last paragraph should be given more prominence. May put prominent Leave campaigners in charge of the Brexit negotiations, presumably so that she couldn't be accused of sabotaging them https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_of_State_for_Exiting_the_European_Union. Unfortunately Davis was unable to negotiate effectively. https://www.ft.com/content/9e3aacf0-7b9c-11e8-bc55-50daf11b720d – Paul Johnson Nov 26 '18 at 14:47
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    @PaulJohnson I've beefed up the TLDR a bit to try to highlight that. Unfortunately it's a bit easy to lose the closing paragraphs in the Leadership Campaign timeline, but I don't want to make that bullet list a footnote. – Jontia Nov 26 '18 at 14:57
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    (+1) Good answer. I would argue that Andrea Leadsom never had enough party support to actually win the race and therefore May was bound to be the new PM. Nevertheless I do wonder what might have happened if the cabinet was either full-remain or full-leave instead of a mixed bag. I don't think any of the options would be sustainable long term but than again neither it was this one. One could argue that the snap general election was about more than just gaining ground over the opposition parties. – armatita Nov 26 '18 at 15:20
  • @armatita There's a whole rabbit hole of gamesmanship in the leadership election that I didn't go down. Most obviously Remain MPs may have pushed Leadsom ahead of Gove in the race to two, leaving the lower profile candidate to face the party run off. Given Conservative voters went mainly Leave according to post referendum polls they might have voted for her anyway, and almost certainly would have voted for Gove/Johnson, who in turn would have been less likely to withdraw from the race when the list was whittled to two. But that's conspiracy theory stuff. – Jontia Nov 26 '18 at 15:26
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    You mention Nigel Farage. It's worth mentioning that he immediately resigned from UKIP leader on winning the referendum – Richard Tingle Nov 27 '18 at 09:59
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    @RichardTingle it felt a little like going too far off tangent. The reason he's not doing any negotiating is that he's not a member of the government. Explaining what Farage in particular is up to now felt like a different question. – Jontia Nov 27 '18 at 10:13
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    A good answer that, I fear, veers too much towards political correctness regarding Leave politicians' inability to make any sort of meaningful progress. In particular, Davis's legendary incompetence should at least warrant a mention. – Ian Kemp Nov 27 '18 at 10:18
  • @IanKemp That sort of assessment probably belongs more in; https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/35594/what-are-the-main-reasons-for-why-negotiating-a-proper-brexit-deal-has-been-so-h – Jontia Nov 27 '18 at 10:55
  • "...leaving May to take the top slot "unopposed"." But there must be at least some confirmation of MPs before Theresa May could become PM. I mean, she didn't just walk into No.10 saying "it's me". There must have been some confirmation which means the power was handed to her by someone, not that she just took it?? – NoDataDumpNoContribution Nov 27 '18 at 21:33
  • @Trilarion the relevant section of the Wikipedia page is "leaving May as the only candidate.[41]Conservative MP and Chairman of the 1922 Committee, Graham Brady, announced that May would be confirmed as Conservative Party leader as soon as the party's board had been consulted" so there is some sort of party board doing the sign off, but the language used is "unopposed" because all other candidates had been eliminated or withdrew. It is an odd system, but the final candidate being unopposed happens about half the time in Tory leadership contests I believe. – Jontia Nov 27 '18 at 23:39
  • @Jontia So you really just kind of walk into No. 10 and say: "all the other chaps gave up, so it must be me". – NoDataDumpNoContribution Nov 28 '18 at 08:48
  • @Trilarion That is what happened. Although it was Theresa May rather than me. And it was in accordance with the procedures laid down for Conservative leadership elections as explained in the wiki link in the main answer. – Jontia Nov 28 '18 at 09:23
  • @Jontia Okay, you convinced me. One would expect some kind of formal transferal of power but it seems to be all very informal in the UK political system. – NoDataDumpNoContribution Nov 28 '18 at 09:33
  • @Trilarion The formal transfer of power is done by the Queen. In theory she can appoint absolutely anyone to be Prime Minister - they don't have to be elected at all, they don't have to follow the party process, and they don't even have to be from the party with the most MPs. The last time this happened was the Australian crisis with the Governor-General performing that role: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Australian_constitutional_crisis – pjc50 Nov 28 '18 at 11:43
  • @pjc50 So one answer to this question could be "formally because of the Queen and some rather informal rules about whom the Queen usually puts in charge". – NoDataDumpNoContribution Nov 28 '18 at 13:20
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Other answers have given details of the history, so I will seek to explain the reasoning behind it.

The Tory party has been divided on the EU since before the UK joined. Cameron was attempting to put to rest an issue that had plagued every Tory PM for decades by holding a definitive referendum.

After the referendum result Cameron could not continue as leader, having lost the referendum (he strongly supported remaining). As a remainer he would have faced severe criticism for not really believing in the thing he was supposed to be negotiating, something that later damaged May. He couldn't realistically lead the party into the next election either, due to having already lost a vote.

The question then became who would take over. A number of Brexit supporting candidates came forward for the Tory leadership contest, but all dropped out. It became apparent to them that there was not enough support for their hard Brexit ideas within their own party, meaning that they would have no realistic chance of delivering it.

Essentially they all realized that he Tory party was still just as divided and that the task they were faced with was impossible. May apparently felt that she could deliver some kind of compromise that would be acceptable to enough people to pass it, and pressed ahead.

I'm speculating by she may have thought that weak opposition from the Labour party would help her. She certainly thought it was a good idea to call a general election early, in the hope of gaining a larger majority and thus being able to isolate the hard line Brexitters in the Tory party. In other words she wanted enough moderates and loyalists in Parliament to pass her compromise deal, but her plan failed spectacularly when Labour, and Corbyn in particular, proved to be more formidable than she had reckoned.

So the short answer is that all the strong Brexit supporters realized that actually delivering Brexit would destroy them and make their legacy one of failure, so stepped back to let May take the fall.

user
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    It seems more like the "short answer" is that the political class in Britain as a whole, Tories included, simply refuse to honor the referendum, as suggested in your third paragraph. Of course I'm not saying they should honor it. Democracy goes too far when the people start trying to run things to suit themselves. – Ed Plunkett Nov 26 '18 at 18:58
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    Not so much "honour" it, as in they realized that it was too vague and that the promises made were ridiculous fantasies, so whatever anyone did would be a failure and never satisfy any useful percentage of voters. What could anyone possibly do to "honour" it in any meaningful way? – user Nov 26 '18 at 21:24
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    Laws, obviously, can be repealed. Governments do complicated things all the time, when those in power happen to feel like it. But I understand that it's uncomfortable to admit that those in power simply do as they please, without much concern for the voters. – Ed Plunkett Nov 26 '18 at 21:45
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    You are ignoring the question though. What could anyone do that would "honour" the vote? No option does what any majority of people wanted, and no option is deliverable given the situation. What do you think should actually happen? – user Nov 26 '18 at 22:50
  • No option is deliverable given what “situation”, precisely? The best I can gather from your answer is essentially “It can’t be done because nobody wants to do it”. – Ed Plunkett Nov 27 '18 at 04:14
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    What would be done to “honor” (such an eerie word, I’ll handle it with tweezers too) the referendum seems fairly clear: At one time the UK was not part of the EU. Something, a series of laws perhaps, made it part of the EU. Find out what laws. Repeal them. The laws of man are not the laws of nature. – Ed Plunkett Nov 27 '18 at 04:21
  • @EdPlunket Neither the Question nor the Answer asked about the legal aspect of Brexit. The "law" has already been invoked that will allow the UK to officially leave the EU. But there are various forms this can take, depending on how friendly the UK is with the EU after it is done. This has to be negotiated, as refusing to negotiate would basically destroy the UK economy, since they would have no trade with Europe, period. That's a vast simplification, but it gets a lot more complicated than what I can say in a comment, so I suggest you actually read up on Brexit. – trlkly Nov 27 '18 at 05:26
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    @EdPlunkett When user talks about what the Leave campaign promised, they are not talking about the Leaving part, but the stuff they promised would happen if the UK left. Here are a list of promises that the Leave campaign made that cannot happen: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2018/mar/28/11-brexit-promises-leavers-quietly-dropped And I found that on the first Google result for "leave promises that were broken." There are a lot more articles in that list. – trlkly Nov 27 '18 at 05:35
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    @EdPlunkett problem with simply repealing the laws is that it would make the UK extremely poor, destroy many people's jobs and cause massive problems like a hard border in Ireland and the world's largest lorry park in Kent. No-one voted for that, we were promised milk and honey. That would be a massive betrayal of what people expected and were sold. – user Nov 27 '18 at 09:38
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    "...so stepped back to let May take the fall." If this was the expectation, then one could say that she performed remarkably well, getting to a point that there is some kind of negotiated withdrawal agreement and a vote about it will happen in Parliament. – NoDataDumpNoContribution Nov 27 '18 at 21:36
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    @Trilarion perhaps, although she didn't want the vote. – user Nov 27 '18 at 22:38
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    @EdPlunkett sure, it's the European Communities Act 1972; the problem is that it replaced a lot of previous international agreements, and repealing it doesn't bring them back. "Just leave" with no plan and no replacement agreements would be the greatest self-inflicted peacetime disaster any country has ever seen. – pjc50 Nov 28 '18 at 11:51
  • @Trilarion I think it's called "the person who cares the most loses". – user3067860 Nov 28 '18 at 15:08
  • @pjc50 The problem is that the the referendum was just a suggestion that the UK government was in fact free to disregard if they chose. And they are choosing to disregard it. "Oh but it's complicated." So what? The Large Hadron Collider is complicated, yet there it is. Modern computer operating systems are complicated. The reason Brexit will not happen, as I said, is that the public told the political class to do it, and the political class said "no". Joining the EU in the first place was vastly complicated and impractical; was that ever a valid objection? Certainly not. – Ed Plunkett Dec 04 '18 at 18:55
  • @user "...would make the UK extremely poor, grass growing in the streets..." Yeah, and Saddam Hussein had nuclear weapons. That stuff is propaganda. You literally get better predictions by flipping a coin than asking an economist. I understand that you have strong feelings about the matter, but that's exactly why you should be skeptical of people who tell you what you want to hear. Modern nations with healthy economies don't collapse because of a few changes in trade regulations. The US trades with the UK; the US is not an EU member. But this is all entirely irrelevant to OP's question. – Ed Plunkett Dec 04 '18 at 19:08
  • @EdPlunkett post-truth anti-intelectualism is what got the UK into this mess. Pursuing it now seems unwise. – user Dec 05 '18 at 09:42
  • @user "Siri, show me a thought-terminating cliché." – Ed Plunkett Dec 05 '18 at 15:25
  • @EdPlunkett You just asserted that you "literally get better predictions by flipping a coin than asking an economist", which is both ridiculous and generic enough to be hard to challenge (since "an economist" is non-specific). It's textbook post-truth rhetoric. – user Dec 05 '18 at 15:46
  • @user Post-truth. Anti-intellectual. Sorry about your deeply held faith and stuff, but Jesus didn't ride a dinosaur, the Earth isn't flat, and economists are very poor at predictions. Media selects for the ones willing to pretend to certainty. A guy in a suit saying "I don't know either" makes for dull TV. – Ed Plunkett Dec 05 '18 at 16:29
  • @EdPlunkett you can site all the bad economists you like, that still doesn't mean that the serious ones are literally worse than random chance. Sensible people evaluate sources rather than making such blanket, outlandish statements. The attempt to demonize economists and economic forecasting is a common aspect of post-truth politics. – user Dec 05 '18 at 16:51
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This is covered in this section of David Cameron's Wikipedia page, albeit indirectly. It's also discussed on the page for the referendum itself.

Basically, David Cameron was the Prime Minister at the time of the Brexit referendum, and was responsible for scheduling and overseeing it. I believe his party (the Conservative Party) was officially neutral on the vote, but he gave permission for anyone in it to campaign for whichever side they preferred. He, personally, preferred to stay in the EU, and he resigned when the final vote was for "Leave". Thesera May was chosen as the replacement Prime Minister, and thus is now responsible for actually arranging it.

Bobson
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  • One could add, that, even though the government conducts the negotiation, Parliament has to agree on every such treaty like the withdrawal agreement and Parliament could have, at any time, voted for another PM/government, if it didn't like the current one (keyword: leadership contest). In a way Theresa May is just executing the will of the Tory/DUP alliance in Parliament. – NoDataDumpNoContribution Nov 27 '18 at 21:40
  • @Trilarion In general Parliament does NOT have to agree to treaties. Article 50 notification required parliamentary approval because it would nullify a number of Acts of Parliament. The withdrawal agreement requires parliamentary approval because an amendment requiring this was added to the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (specifically section 13). Without that section, parliamentary approval would not be required. – Martin Bonner supports Monica Nov 28 '18 at 09:58
  • @MartinBonner It would then not be required because Parliament already gave their approval in the Withdrawal Act 2018, I would say. But probably even then they could have changed their mind in the mean time, I guess. As I understand it, all power comes from the Parliament, directly or indirectly, even if it can choose to delegate it at times. Otherwise it wouldn't be a democracy. I just want to emphasize that Theresa May is not acting on her own but broadly relies on the Parliament and especially the Tory and DUP MPs to back her. Without that backup, she could not have done that negotiation. – NoDataDumpNoContribution Nov 28 '18 at 13:24
  • @Trilarion Your understanding is wrong. As a general rule treaties with foreign states are enacted by the Royal Prerogative. That means they are nominally made by the Queen, but in practise by the Government. The only control Parliament has over treaties is that in theory they can remove the Government by passing a motion of no confidence. – Martin Bonner supports Monica Nov 28 '18 at 13:29
  • @MartinBonner That's already a lot of control, I would say, but less than I thought. Thanks for the correction. Parliament makes the laws and can dispose governments, but the government does negotiate and sign off treaties (nominally the Queen). Still it seems to me that May relies on the backing of the Parliament. – NoDataDumpNoContribution Nov 28 '18 at 13:38
  • @Trilarion there are other acts that are effected by royal prerogative, not just treaties. – phoog Nov 30 '18 at 05:21
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The top answer says:

“the Chief [Brexit] Negotiator.. then resigned when [he was] unable to deliver anything that [he] personally approved of as a consequence of the negotiations.”

What happened was that the Prime Minister had two Brexit strategies running in parallel. One in public, led by the elected representative Brexit Secretary (David Davis), and one quietly behind the scenes led by a civil servant named Olly Robbins.

Brexit can be split into two parts: the Withdrawal Agreement and the Future Relationship.

The Withdrawal Agreement is the legal agreement defining the process by which the UK will leave: for example financial settlements, dates and rules for any period of transition.

The Future Relationship is the legal text used to define the UK/EU relationship after any transition period. ie. for the long-term.

As Brexit Secretary, David Davis was unhappy with elements of the Withdrawal Agreement as it slowly emerged in 2017/early 2018, but his team’s primary focus in early 2018 was the really important text: the Future Relationship.

The Prime Minister then announced that the Draft Future Relationship text would be revealed on 12th July 2018 at her official country house named Chequers.

It immediately became clear to David Davis, the Brexit Secretary, and the people’s representative in this area of policy, that his work was to be ignored and that another document, written by the second team inside the Civil Service, was to be used as the basis for Brexit. Davis then resigned (along with his deputy).

So the Brexit Secretary’s manager revealed that she had gone behind his back for a period of months to develop her own plan to replace his. This was a firing, not a resignation.

The answer to the wider question as to “what happened to all the Brexiters?” is simple: Brexit was a revolt against the political establishment. So there were almost no Brexiters in a position of power in the first place.

There were a handful (a minority) of Brexiters in the Prime Minister’s cabinet, but they have mostly resigned by now in protest at May’s deal.

And Nigel Farage was an MEP, not an MP.

Edit:

You ask about Boris in a comment. Boris did launch a campaign to run for PM, but shortly after thereof another MP (Michael Gove) who was also reputed to be a Leaver stepped up to be in the running for the leadership. Gove was widely perceived to be the more serious, more capable and more rounded candidate and therefore likely to win. Furthermore, Gove immediately went on the offensive against Boris who had been a close ally only hours earlier, saying he “cannot provide the leadership or build the team for the task ahead.” This sequence caused people to say that he had “knifed Boris.”

This forced Boris to re-evaluate his chances of winning, and he dropped out of the race. Gove then subsequently lost to Leadsom. Presumably this loss was contributed to by his perceived poor conduct wrt Boris. His motivation for running in this way was unclear. However, with Gove subsequently backing both the loathed Withdrawal Agreement and a Future Relationship scoffed at by Leavers, questions can be raised about his true status as a Leaver. If Gove was actually a Remainer, then this would not be without precedent. Philip Hammond (the current Chancellor) indicated prior to the vote that he could vote to leave the EU. It has become abundantly clear since that he is a firm Remainer, going so far as to call the Leavers in his party "extremists".

Leadsom dropped out after a media offensive against her for (benign) remarks about Theresa May’s childlessness. Her inability to form a coherent response to this relatively mild media spotlight, caused her support to waiver and undermined her Prime Minsterial image, although by this point she merely needed to win the membership, who could well have backed her for her stance on Brexit alone. I don’t know why she withdrew. Perhaps she simply couldn’t take it, perhaps she was an intentional spoiler candidate.

Edit 2:

For reference, here are some relevant paragraphs from a Huffington Post article on events. All the big news outlets had a consistent description of events.

The most important paragraphs say:

Davis made clear to the PM last Monday that he was “not happy” at leaks that she was to revive the soft Brexit option. Incredibly, he first found out about the details of the new scheme on Tuesday afternoon, after the BBC had been briefed on them for that morning’s Today programme.

“There’s an important constitutional point here,” one ally said. “An unelected civil servant has been used to bypass the party, Parliament and the Cabinet strategy and negotiations committee. The Cabinet Office ‘Europe Unit’ seems to be running the show. Even Tony Blair at least paid lip service to Cabinet Government.

The source continued: “We had a situation where the Foreign Secretary was only given a big thick folder on the Brexit white paper on 2pm, the day before the Chequers meeting to discuss it.”

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52d6c6af
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    The latest edit only begs the question why Davis remained in post between September 2017 and July 2018. That's a nine month period where allegedly he's not allowed to do his job. That shows either the situation is not as described, or that Davis lacks any confidence that his position had any merit in the first place. – Jontia Nov 29 '18 at 09:03
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    Interesting question. I reject the dichotomy you propose. I can think of a number of other scenarios why he stayed in post. – 52d6c6af Nov 29 '18 at 09:51