https://www.zerohedge.com/news...resa-mays-government

Update 4: A second junior Brexit minister has resigned - Suella Bravermanm MP for Fareham. This leaves just two of the five person Brexit team remaining.

Update 3: Here is the full text of Theresa May's letter in response to David Davis's resignation as Brexit Secretary (highlights ours):

Dear David

Thank you for your letter explaining your decision to resign as Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union.

I am sorry that you have chosen to leave the Government when we have already made so much progress towards delivering a smooth and successful Brexit, and when we are only eight months from the date set in law when the United Kingdom will leave the European Union.

At Chequers on Friday, we as the Cabinet agreed a comprehensive and detailed proposal which provides a precise, responsible, and credible basis for progressing our negotiations towards a new relationship between the UK and the EU after we leave in March. We set out how we will deliver on the result of the referendum and the commitments we made in our manifesto for the 2017 general election:

Leaving the EU on 29 March 2019.

Ending free movement and taking back control of our borders.

No more sending vast sums of money each year to the EU.

A new business-friendly customs model with freedom to strike new trade deals around the world.

A UK-EU free trade area with a common rulebook for industrial goods and agricultural products which will be good for jobs.

A commitment to maintain high standards on consumer and employment rights and the environment.

A Parliamentary lock on all new rules and regulations.

Leaving the Common Agricultural Policy and the Common Fisheries Policy.

Restoring the supremacy of British courts by ending the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice in the UK.

No hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, or between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

Continued, close co-operation on security to keep our people safe.

An independent foreign and defence policy, working closely with the EU and other allies.

This is consistent with the mandate of the referendum and with the commitments we laid out in our general election manifesto: leaving the single market and the customs union but seeking a deep and special partnership including a comprehensive free trade and customs agreement; ending the vast annual contributions to the EU; and pursuing fair, orderly negotiations, minimising disruption and giving as much certainty as possible so both sides benefit.

As we said in our manifesto, we believe it is necessary to agree the terms of our future partnership alongside our withdrawal, reaching agreement on both within the two years allowed by Article 50.

I have always agreed with you that these two must go alongside one another, but if we are to get sufficient detail about our future partnership, we need to act now. We have made a significant move: it is for the EU now to respond in the same spirit.

I do not agree with your characterisation of the policy we agreed at Cabinet on Friday.

Parliament will decide whether or not to back the deal the Government negotiates, but that deal will undoubtedly mean the returning of powers from Brussels to the United Kingdom.

The direct effect of EU law will end when we leave the EU. Where the UK chooses to apply a common rulebook, each rule will have to be agreed by Parliament.

Choosing not to sign up to certain rules would lead to consequences for market access, security co-operation or the frictionless border, but that decision will rest with our sovereign Parliament, which will have a lock on whether to incorporate those rules into the UK legal order.

I am sorry that the Government will not have the benefit of your continued expertise and counsel as we secure this deal and complete the process of leaving the EU, but I would like to thank you warmly for everything you have done over the past two years as Secretary of State to shape our departure from the EU, and the new role the UK will forge on the world stage as an independent, self-governing nation once again.

You returned to Government after nineteen years to lead an entirely new Department responsible for a vital, complex, and unprecedented task.

You have helped to steer through Parliament some of the most important legislation for generations, including the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017 and the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, which received Royal Assent last week.

These landmark Acts, and what they will do, stand as testament to your work and our commitment to honouring the result of the referendum.

Yours sincerely,

Theresa May

Update 2: Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn wasted no time in launching a full on attack on May, tweeting: "David Davis resigning at such a crucial time shows @theresa_may has no authority left and is incapable of delivering Brexit. With her Government in chaos, if she clings on, it's clear she's more interested in hanging on for her own sake than serving the people of our country."

And in light of recent advanced by democrat socialists in the US, it probably wouldn't be too ridiculous for the UK to make a hard left turn next as well.

* * *

Update 1: Confirming earlier rumors, Sky News reports that Steve Baker, Britain's junior Brexit minister, technically the Brexit minister for "contingency planning", is the other (for now) conservative MP to resign alongside Davis.

* * *

In what has been called "an absolute bombshell", U.K. Brexit Secretary David Davis resigned from Theresa May’s government late Sunday, one week before the UK is scheduled to present its demands to Brussels.

His full resignation letter is below (highlights ours):

Dear Prime Minister

As you know there have been a significant number of occasions in the last year or so on which I have disagreed with the Number 10 policy line, ranging from accepting the Commission's sequencing of negotiations through to the language on Northern Ireland in the December Joint Report.

At each stage I have accepted collective responsibility because it is part of my task to find workable compromises, and because I considered it was still possible to deliver on the mandate of the referendum, and on our manifesto commitment to leave the Customs Union and the Single Market.

I am afraid that I think the current trend of policy and tactics is making that look less and less likely. Whether it is the progressive dilution of what I thought was a firm Chequers agreement in February on right to diverge, or the unnecessary delays of the start of the White Paper, or the presentation of a backstop proposal that omitted the strict conditions that I requested and believed that we had agreed, the general direction of policy will leave us in at best a weak negotiating position, and possibly an inescapable one.

The Cabinet decision on Friday crystallised this problem. In my view the inevitable consequence of the proposed policies will be to make the supposed control by Parliament illusory rather than real. As I said at Cabinet, the "common rule book" policy hands control of large swathes of our economy to the EU and is certainly not returning control of our laws in any real sense.

I am also unpersuaded that our negotiating approach will not just lead to further demands for concessions.

Of course this is a complex area of judgement and it is possible that you are right and I am wrong. However, even in that event it seems to me that the national interest requires a Secretary of State in my Department that is an enthusiastic believer in your approach, and not merely a reluctant conscript. While I have been grateful to you for the opportunity to serve, it is with great regret that I tender my resignation from the Cabinet with immediate effect.

Yours ever,

David Davis

Davis resignation comes two days after May received backing from her cabinet for a new "soft Brexit" plan which envisioned maintaining close ties with the EU after the UK's departure from the block, news which was cheered the UK business lobby and which had set cable on an upward trajectory in early Asia trading, before the news hit which halted the pound's ascent.

The cabinet signed up to the proposals, which were hammered out at Chequers - the country house of the UK Prime Minister - last week. May is due to unveil the plans tomorrow in parliament, before a potentially stormy meeting with her own MPs.

Davis had disagreed with May’s plans for keeping EU rules for goods and adopting a close customs model with the bloc, and his resignation threatens more political turmoil, this time in the UK, as moderates are set off against hard brexiteers.
However, some pro-Brexit Tories are angry about the plan, with speculation that it could end up in a leadership challenge.

As Sky News adds, some pro-Brexit Tories are angry about the plan and there is speculation it could end up in a leadership challenge. Sky's political correspondent Lewis Goodall called the resignation of Mr Davis "an absolute bombshell".

He said: "To resign tonight after the emergency meeting at Chequers on Friday is really quite shocking when you consider, apparently according to the briefing we received, that every single member of the cabinet - admittedly some with their reservations - all agreed that they would support the prime minister's proposals and they would defend them in public.

"The big question now is, is David Davis going to be joined by any other figures? All eyes of course will be on Boris Johnson and other Brexiteers."

According to BBC's Laura Kuenssberg, "Davis concluded he could not stay in post after a meeting" with Theresa May earlier today - "understand he was furious at Number 10 handling"

Meanwhile, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson reportedly described defending the plans as like "polishing a turd" during the Chequers summit, before eventually falling into line behind the prime minister.

* * *

As a reminder, late on Friday Theresa May won approval at an all-day Chequers summit for a pro-business plan to keep Britain intimately bound to the EU single market and customs union, beating back Eurosceptic cabinet opposition to her new “soft Brexit” strategy, the FT reported.

May briefed the media at 6.45pm on Friday that the cabinet had agreed a collective position to create a “UK-EU free trade area which establishes a common rulebook for industrial goods and agricultural products”. The plan would see Britain commit in a treaty to adopt new EU rules for goods— an approach viewed by some Tories as leaving the UK as “a vassal state”. Parliament could break the treaty, but trigger severe market reprisals from the EU if it did.

May challenged critics including foreign secretary Boris Johnson to back the plan for a “UK-EU free trade area” in a confrontation seen by senior Tories as a decisive moment in the tortuous Brexit process.

Johnson and five other cabinet ministers met on Thursday night at the Foreign Office to plan a counter-attack to try to preserve a clean Brexit, but they eventually concluded they could not stop Mrs May’s plan.

“People are not happy with what is being proposed but people are keen to keep the government together,” said one of those at the meeting at Mrs May’s country residence.

May’s team had vaunted the prime minister’s ability to face down the Eurosceptics, encouraged by pleas from mainstream Conservative MPs that the time had come for her to tell her critics to put up or shut up.

Davis' unexpected resignation threatens to further inflame cabinet tensions, especially in light of an earlier Mirror report that 42 lawmakers had formally expressed no confidence in Theresa May. A leadership contest would be triggered if 48 Conservative MPs formally submit letters.

May said on Friday that the proposals were "good for the UK and good for the EU" and would "deliver prosperity and security".

And while it remains unclear if there will be more resignation in Davis' footsteps, according to the BBC at least one more minister is on their way out:

To be honest I couldn't make heads or tails of the OP article. Here's one I found that I can relate to:

quote:

Faithless, craven and cowardly – the British government’s Brexit betrayal
July 8, 2018 Melanie Phillips

We don’t yet know whether Brexiteers in the Conservative party will seek to bring down the Prime Minister Theresa May over the UK negotiating position that she forced through Cabinet on Friday.

We don’t yet know whether the EU will accept her “compromise” package or will reject it with the contempt they have shown until now at any suggestion of a “pick and mix” approach to the EU’s customs union and rules.

But what we can say with near-certainty is that what Mrs May has done is put in serious doubt a Conservative victory at the next general election – and maybe at any further general election for a long time after that.

For she and her cowardly and faithless colleagues have betrayed Brexit voters, betrayed democracy and betrayed the British people.

In voting as they did on June 23 2016 to leave the EU, the British people made a solemn declaration of belief in the value of democratic sovereignty, national self-government and Britain regaining the power to decide its own laws, to conduct its own trade deals in the best interests of the country, and to rule itself once again with its own policies passed by its own parliament as the independent nation it once was.

Ever since that historic vote the Remainers – who by definition do not value democratic self-government and national sovereignty which they are all too happy to see subsumed under EU control – have sought every means possible to undermine and reverse the Brexit vote.

On Friday, they succeeded. This was a Remainer coup. Mrs May is insisting that her package would deliver Brexit. This is false.

It would leave the UK tied to a number of EU policies and thus unable to make policy in such areas for itself; it would destroy the UK’s ability to negotiate trade deals in the best interests of the nation; it would leave the UK still to some extent under the thumb of the European Court of Justice. Thus the UK would remain deprived of national sovereignty and the power to govern itself as an independent nation.

Moreover, Mrs May’s package would leave the UK in a worse position even than as a member of the EU. For under her terms, the UK would be bound by a number of EU rules and policies but with no say over them at all.

(Indeed, some Remainers fantasise that engineering just an outcome would fuel pressure for a second referendum and a vote to stay in – ignoring the fact that there can be no return to the status quo ante, since the triumphant EU would insist that, in order to remain, the bloodied UK would have to abolish the pound and join the Euro.)

Does Mrs May understand this? Is she Machiavelli in kitten heels – or is she just too narrow-minded, too incapable of grasping any big idea other than the survival of her government, too personally defensive, too psychologically clenched against viewpoints that challenge her own to be remotely competent?

The idea that problems such as the Northern Ireland border are otherwise simply insuperable is absurd. The fact remains that Britain held – and still holds – the major card in its own hands. The EU needs Britain more than Britain needs the EU.

That doesn’t mean there are no downsides from leaving: of course there are.

But a real leader would have said to the country something like this: “Look, there are going to be hiccups and problems and we may well have to bite on a few painful bullets. But the upside is that, overall, our economic future is very bright indeed if we make the cleanest possible break; and politically, we will once again be independent and in charge of our own laws and destiny. And for that most precious of all gifts we will pay a price if we have to, just as this country has always buckled down and paid a price for liberty – which is really what Britain is fundamentally all about”.

And to the EU, such a real leader would have said something like this: “The people of Britain have spoken and we are now leaving you. We will not seek a deal; we will take our chances with WTO rules and tariffs because even with all that we’ll still take you to the economic cleaners; but if you would like to offer us a deal, you’ll find our door is always open because we’ll always be your friends. Good bye!”

In the event, Mrs May’s negotiating position was beyond risible. She dismissed the innate strength of her country relative to the EU economic and political basket-case and instead – incredibly – approached the (possibly terminally) stricken Brussels behemoth as a nervous supplicant. Unsurprisingly, the EU promptly punched Britain in the solar plexus and is now preparing to kick it in the head.

As for the Brexiteers in Cabinet, they have all been revealed as beyond pathetic. According to media reports, as Friday’s marathon meeting wore on – after a brief, flailing and juvenile eruption by Boris Johnson – they all ended up supporting this appalling travesty.

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that they were all measuring their leadership ambitions against each other and so collectively were unable to present a united front. It was self-interest first, national interest last. Not one of them has resigned. “Friends” of Boris Johnson say he can do more to fight for Brexit by staying within Cabinet. Really? He has now put his name to Brexit’s betrayal. He will not be forgiven.

All these people have now shown themselves unworthy of leading their party.
They do not deserve to be in office; the Conservative party no longer deserves to be in government.

People are rightly worried that Jeremy Corbyn, Labour’s far-left leader, may become Prime Minister. That fear has helped Mrs May fight off any possible challengers. Jeremy Corbyn has been her human shield.

But here’s the thing. If the choice is to be between Mrs May’s Brexit betrayal and a Corbyn government, many may well now be thinking they’d either actually prefer Corbyn, who at least remains personally hostile to UK membership of the EU – or far more lethally, that there’s no longer much point in trying to stop him.

Because if Britain really is to remain tied to the EU, the UK parliament will increasingly become no more significant than Westminster regional council within the Brussels empire. So who cares if Corbyn becomes Prime Minister, this thinking would go, since the EU won’t let him do half of what he wants to do anyway?

And that’s the worst danger of all from this debacle: that the British people will simply lose faith not just in the wretched Conservative party but in the democratic process which will become increasingly meaningless.

That said, this thing is far from over; indeed, it may have only just begun. For if the EU sticks to its previous intransigence, it will reject the British government’s offer and insist that it makes further concessions to the EU’s rules which even Mrs May dare not make.

Which means, prepare now for “no deal”. Which Britain should have done right from the start.

But however this finally ends, Mrs May and her craven colleagues have done real damage – to themselves as politicians, to the Conservative party and to democracy itself.

Link

Thanks sjtill. I couldn't understand the first article, either.