In the seven months since the UK triggered Article 50, not one week has passed without the cabinet’s Brexit divisions being openly exposed. This week it was David Davis suggesting that MPs may not get a vote on the deal before Britain leaves, and Boris Johnson unilaterally guaranteeing EU citizens the right to remain.
After Theresa May contradicted Davis at PMQs, the Brexit Secretary’s own department stated that he “expects and intends” that an agreement will be reached in time. Johnson, meanwhile, told a meeting of the Belvedere Forum on Polish-UK relations: “We have 30,000 businesses in this country that are Polish. We have one million Poles in Britain. We are thoroughly blessed, we are lucky. And I have only one message for you all tonight: you are loved, you are welcome, your rights will be protected whatever happens. Yes. You are recording this? Your rights will be protected whatever happens.” A few hours earlier, Johnson told MPs that a deal had not been reached and that it was “up to our friends and partners in the EU now to look seriously at the offer we are making and, particularly on citizens, to make progress”. So not only are cabinet ministers disagreeing with each other – they are now disagreeing with themselves.
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