Ex-Brexit chief David Davis boasts he forced previous PM out: “I knew my resignation would be the end for May”
Former Brexit secretary David David claimed when he resigned from the cabinet in July 2018, “I knew that it would be the end” for Theresa May as PM.
The veteran politician and Brexiteer hit out at the former leader, while also taking a swipe at the current resident of Number 10, reiterating his call for Boris Johnson to quit over lockdown breaches.
Speaking to former MP Gloria De Piero on GB News, Davis said he stepped down as Brexit secretary after the former PM conceded ground to the EU during negotiations over the north and Republic of Ireland.
Her plans promoted a UK-EU free trade area and closely-linked customs relationship, and at the time, he said she was “giving away too much and too easily” in talks.
“What she conceded, in my view, wasn’t the first thing she did to undermine our negotiations, but this one would cripple our negotiations.
“It would mean we’d have to keep Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland on a par, which meant we couldn’t do all the things we wanted to do elsewhere. It handicapped everything.
“And I very nearly resigned on the spot, there and then. But I thought no, I’m going to try, I owe her the duty of loyalty and the country the duty of loyalty to try at all costs to make it work.”
“The six months between that point and when I actually did resign was the hardest struggle of my life,” he said. “Trying to pull the policy back, you know.”
In the extended interview, he spoke about his decision to quit in 2018, which was shortly followed by resignations of Boris Johnson and Steve Baker.
“I won the first two rounds of arguments in January and February, so much so that then she and Number Ten started doing a completely separate policy from me which, when I discovered it, I thought that that was it, that I could do no more, and I resigned.
“When I resigned, I’m afraid I knew that it would be the end of her Prime Ministership.”
“In fact, it took longer than I thought, it took two years.”
“But it was obvious: the moment I went, she was going to fall. And that was a necessary part because we would not have delivered Brexit if I had stayed.”
Davis also stood by his infamous decision to tell the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, “In the name of God, go”, during Prime Minister’s questions.
Asked if he regretted his words in January amid the Partygate scandal, he said: “No, not at all.”
“When he appeared to blame his subordinates. All this ‘they didn’t tell me,’ all that sort of stuff”, he decided to call him out publicly.
Davis also hit out at Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s former right-hand-man, who quit Number 10 before becoming a whistleblower about rule-breaking.
He called Cummings jibe that he was “thick as mince” and “lazy as a toad” was “not very original.”