Boris Johnson sets out vision of Brexit, prompting speculation about challenge to Theresa May
Prime Minister May’s authority was weakened after she called a snap election in June, only to lose her Conservative party’s majority in the House of Commons
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson made a rallying cry for Brexit on Friday in what will be viewed as a challenge to Prime Minister Theresa May, one week before her own big speech on the subject.
In a 4,000-word article for The Daily Telegraph newspaper, Johnson argued for a clean break with the European Union, particularly on the fraught issue of budget payments.
Johnson, who has long been tipped as a future prime minister, played a key role in the referendum vote to leave the bloc last year but since then has largely stayed out of domestic politics.
His intervention, exactly one week before the prime minister makes a speech on Brexit in Florence next Friday, raised more than a few eyebrows among politicians and commentators.
I do not underestimate the scale of the task ahead as we take back control of our destiny
May’s authority was weakened after she called a snap election in June, only to lose her Conservative party’s majority in the House of Commons.
“Is this time to place our future in Boris’s hands and prepare for new leadership?” Telegraph commentator Charles Moore wrote in an accompanying article.
