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UK: Davis stays on as UK Brexit Secretary despite election

 |  June 11, 2017

British Prime Minister Theresa May’s new government has reconfirmed Brexit negotiator David Davis and other top ministers in their posts, ending speculation of a major cabinet reshuffle after Thursday’s general election.

The Prime Minister’s office confirmed late Friday that Davis will keep his cabinet job as secretary of state for exiting the European Union, which makes him the UK’s chief Brexit negotiator.

The election threw into question the form of Brexit voters want. May campaigned to remove the UK from the single market so she could regain control of immigration and law-making — the so-called hard Brexit. She may now struggle to find majority support for that stance in the new parliament, although she gave no indication that she will change tack as she promised to “deliver the will of the British people.”

Her threat to walk away from the talks if provoked is now also diminished given Parliament might not endorse such a gambit. She may face immediate problems passing Brexit-related legislation like the Great Repeal Act.

“Evidently, the confidence of citizens that many things will get better and easier after leaving the EU is waning — even among Brexit supporters,” Juergen Hardt, foreign-affairs spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s parliamentary caucus, said in a statement.

Full Content: Bloomberg

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