Boris Johnson Has Put the Old Brexit Gang Back Together Again
Boris Johnson Has Put the Old Brexit Gang Back Together Again
(Bloomberg) -- The maverick trio who tore up the British political establishment in 2016 and delivered the Brexit vote have now taken over the government and will attempt to complete the task they started.
On day one of being prime minister, Boris Johnson reassembled the Vote Leave band and put Michael Gove and Dominic Cummings in strategic positions from where they can wield great power.
Gove was appointed “Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster,” a strange title that can mean a lot of different things. But often it’s a job for the backroom brains, tasked with sorting out problems and dreaming up policies. His official brief is to take charge of no-deal planning, according to a government aide.
But Gove is likely to do a whole lot more. He’s long wanted to completely reshape the way government works, and the appointment of Cummings, his former aide, to a senior role in Johnson’s team suggests that the two of them will work hand in glove.
“The wiring of power in Downing Street is systemically dysfunctional,” Cummings wrote last year. “Brexit cannot be done with the traditional Westminster/Whitehall system.”
One former senior minister, observing the appointment on Wednesday, remarked that Gove and Cummings were finally in a position to take a scythe to the government structure. If he were a civil servant, he said, he’d be very worried.
To contact the reporter on this story: Robert Hutton in London at rhutton1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Tim Ross at tross54@bloomberg.net, Flavia Krause-Jackson, Caroline Alexander
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