Charles Moore Charles Moore

The 17.4 Million Committee must be launched, urgently

When it was reported that Liam Fox and Boris Johnson are already squabbling about who should be in charge of what in relation to Brexit, this was taken by some to be a feather in Theresa May’s cap. Isn’t she clever to have set Leavers against one another, was the thought. Downing Street sources were quoted as saying that she took a dim view of these silly games.

But if it is true that Cabinet ministers are already at loggerheads about their roles, might that not suggest that the Prime Minister who invented these roles — and entire new government departments — has not properly defined them? Certainly the short-term effect of Boris, Fox, David Davis and, come to that, Theresa May herself, all fishing in the same waters, will be much confusion among newly appointed officials and conflicting advice, including legal advice.

As this column has pointed out before, there is an urgent need for a peacetime revival of the Vote Leave campaign — renamed The 17.4

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