By Lucy Caulkett-
Theresa May stamped her authority in a silent reprimand to Boris Johnson after what appeared to be the Foreign Secretary undermining her position as leader.
Boris Johnson had written a 4,000 article published in the Guardian in which he suggested that money previously spent on the EU bill should be invested in the NHS. Commentators immediately made a meal of Johnson’s move, quick to present him as contradicting the prime minister’s position and making the Cabinet appear to be fractured in its vision for Brexit.
Boris Johnson has always had his own ideas of how Brexit should pan out, but is not in the drivers seat to execute them as he may so wish. He would have been in that position if he hadn’t handed himself for the slaughter by Michael Gove when within touching distance of the keys to Downing Street immediately after David Cameron stepped down. Asserting her authority, Theresa May insisted that her government is “driven from the front”.
The Prime Minister rejected suggestions she had “lost control” of her Cabinet, insisting that ministers it are on the “same destination” for leaving the EU . She didn’t fail to criticise Johnson’s call for an extra £350m a week for the NHS after Brexit, in what was a poignant reminder that the NHS is in desperate trouble and in need of desperate help. May said in response to those comments that it will be ”a decision that will be taken at the time.”
Johnson may have had a good and valid idea about how money formerly spent on the EU should go under Brexit arrangements, but the prime minister would have wanted to be consulted before such a statement was publicly made.
Boris Johnson may have been moving faster than Theresa May on the needs of the NHS. The prime minister may have other ideas as to where the heavy amount of money should be spent besides the NHS. This assumes Theresa May has other plans for the NHS which cannot be ignored even in the untangled web of Brexit disputes. However, Amber Budd, the Home Secretary, accused Johnson of ”backseat driving” of the Brexit process in what she considers to be an attempt by Boris Johnson to manage the Brexit process from the backseat.
Meanwhile, Boris Johnson defended his comments by saying he was trying to ”sketch out the incredibly exciting landscape of the destination ahead”. He said ”what I am trying to do is set out in advance of the prime minister’s speech on Friday because I was involved in that Brexit campaign. People want to know where we are going. It is a good thing to have a bit of an open drum roll about what this country can do”. Boris Johnson is right that people want to know where we are going.
SHORTFALL
Where he falls short is in failing to realise is that it is the prime minister’s job to announce the country’s destination except he knows she already agrees with his vision of where the UK is going and the exact path it would take. Statements about which sectors money will be put in is not fir him to declare, without the approval of with Theresa May. How does he do that, by running the ideas he plans to make public by the prime minister first to get a more stern rebuke in private? That wouldn’t work, but Boris Johnson must know when to express ideas he would like to see take place from those he believes would take place. The safest option is to limit remarks that could put Theresa May in an awkward position.
PRIVATE
The problem here is in the Foreign Secretary being able to keep some of his personal ideas and ambitions about what he expects under Brexit, private. More difficult given how strongly he feels about them. His ambition was to be the UK prime minister, it still is, but gathering and maintaining enough support among Mp’s may be his biggest obstacle. He cannot continue to annoy Mp’s by making comments that will be taken the wrong way.
Johnson once told EU chiefs to ”go whistle” over their hefty demands for hundreds of billions of pounds in divorce fees from the European Union, a comment that would not have angered Theresa May. May has always found the figure mentioned by EU chiefs to be extortionate, but her government has not mentioned what they believe the correct fee to be. The uproar over Johnson’s article was taking place as the Foreign Secretary flew to Italy where he met President Donald Trump for the first time at a UN meeting.