What happened yesterday is quite remarkable. The Prime Minister summed her inner Cabinet to discuss the biggest question facing the country, the defining issue of her premiership. She told them what she thought the right solution was. Then, a majority of the committee rejected her preferred outcome.
What makes this rebuff of Theresa May all the more extraordinary is that two of the members of the committee who went against her are people who she has recently promoted. On Monday, Theresa May elevated Sajid Javid to a great office of state. On Wednesday, he took the opposite position to her in this crunch meeting of the Brexit inner Cabinet. But even more surprising than Javid’s disagreement with her, he is—after all—a committed free trader, is Gavin Williamson’s defiance of her. He was her chief whip, the mastermind of her leadership bid.
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