Theresa May recalls minister as UK Cabinet crumbles
Ministers who commit major gaffes cling to their jobs as May struggles to balance Remainers and Leavers.
In different times, both International Developmnet Secretary Priti Patel and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson could have expected to lose their jobs
By Annabelle Dickson
November 8, 2017	12:32 pm
LONDON — Theresa May is grappling with a new twist on a familiar theme: chaos in her Cabinet.
The U.K. prime minister summoned Priti Patel back to London on Wednesday after revelations that the international development secretary held back details of meetings with Israeli officials, which ridiculed May's attempts to impose discipline on her unruly ministers.
Patel, who previously had the prime minister's support, failed to disclose two more secret meetings with Israeli officials when she had supposedly "confessed all" to the prime minister on Monday, according to The Sun.
She later admitted she held two more meetings with Israeli officials in London and New York in September, also attended by the Conservative Party donor and lobbyist Stuart Polak — the same man who set up Patel's undisclosed meetings in Israel the previous month, the newspaper revealed.
The prime minister had attempted to draw a line under the case of Patel, a high-profile Brexiteer, after she apologized for not informing London about meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior figures that she held while holidaying in the country.
But the latest revelations, and news that Patel also failed to tell May about a proposal to fund the Israeli army with U.K. foreign aid money, which she floated with officials on her return from the Middle East, have piled pressure on May to act.
"I somehow feel that some of this stuff is being drummed up because both Priti and the foreign secretary were big beasts in the Brexit campaign" — Stratford MP Nadhim Zahawi
Forced to cut short an official visit to Africa, Patel was heading back to London on the prime minister's request, according to an official at No. 10, who said the minister would meet May later on Wednesday.
May has also been forced to expressed confidence (again) in her gaffe-prone Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, after accusations in the Times that, by misspeaking before a select committee last week, he had potentially extended the prison term of a British charity worker in Iran — a claim he vehemently denied.
Fragile Cabinet truce
In different times, both Patel and Johnson could have expected to lose their jobs.
"At the end of the day, the British system works on prime ministerial authority and collective responsibility and at the moment both have gone out of the window," said Keith Simpson, a long-serving Tory backbencher.
May's inability to act quickly on the crises surrounding two of the most ardent Brexiteers in her Cabinet has laid bare just how hamstrung the prime minister is when it comes to her top team, according to senior Conservatives.
May is grappling with chaos in her cabinet | Andy Rain/EPA
Britain's relationship with the EU post Brexit is still to be resolved around the Cabinet table, and the contentious bill that will govern the U.K.'s withdrawal from the EU is due to return next week to the House of Commons, where May's Conservatives no longer have an overall majority following June's snap election.
Faced with that scenario, the prime minister has attempted to preserve the fragile truce in her party between those who wanted to remain in the EU — and now generally argue for keeping close ties with the bloc — and those who won the Brexit referendum and more often advocate a clean break with Brussels.
All these pressures come against the backdrop of a sexual harassment scandal besieging Westminster, including an investigation into claims that May's closest ally, the de facto Deputy Prime Minister Damian Green, had pornography on one of his parliamentary computers and made unwanted advances to a Conservative activist — both claims he strongly denies.
The scandal has already forced Michael Fallon to quit as defense secretary and May can ill afford to lose more senior figures.
Tribal Tories
Stratford MP Nadhim Zahawi appeared on BBC Newsnight on Tuesday to defend both Patel and Johnson — and insisted their travails are actually part of a "Remoaner" plot to knock Brexit off course.
"I somehow feel that some of this stuff is being drummed up because both Priti and the foreign secretary were big beasts in the Brexit campaign, and some Labour 'Remoaners' and others think if we can take out some of these beasts and derail the government then maybe we can actually do a U-turn on Brexit," he said.
One Brexit-supporting MP, who did not want to be named, said calls for Patel and Johnson to quit were "overblown" and the idea that Iran would have played fair were it not for Johnson's comments was "a bit ridiculous."
A senior Conservative adviser in the last government, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Brexiteers had rallied around Johnson and Patel, making it hard to fire them.
"She is not a dead woman walking as [former Chancellor] George Osborne said, but she is certainly walking wounded" — Keith Simpson
"The party is in quite a tribal position at the moment where people are literally representing a pro-Brexit tribe or a liberal Conservative Remain tribe and they feel like they want to protect their own," the former adviser said.
May's Cabinet is already weighted in favor of those who campaigned to remain in the European Union: Only six out of 23 full Cabinet members actively campaigned for Vote Leave.
A former Tory Cabinet minister also agreed that in "normal circumstances" Johnson would have gone. "The extraordinary situation we find ourselves in means that apparently the Cabinet needs to be balanced between Remain and Leavers," the former minister said.
"The party is further and further away from the competence label that the Conservative Party should be famous for in government."
Reshuffle talk
Rumors of a reshuffle have swirled around Westminster for weeks but the prime minister has been loath to act. She cannot afford to alienate any of her team when a government defeat on the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, which will transpose EU legislation into U.K. law, already looks like a real possibility — thanks to a raft of amendments tabled by some of her own backbenchers.
May has bene forced to expressed confidence (again) in her gaffe-prone Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson| Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA
"[May's] problem is that when you have a reshuffle, you get two groups of disappointed people — the people you sack who might decide to become insurgents on the backbenches, and those who aren't promoted," Simpson said.
"All prime ministers have this. But if you have a majority of 30 or 40, you can get away with it," he added.
Perhaps the only advantage for May in the delicate balance of power within the party is that neither faction is strong enough to topple her.
"She is not a dead woman walking as [former Chancellor] George Osborne said, but she is certainly walking wounded," Simpson said.
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