iStock/Thinkstock(LONDON) — Boris Johnson has stepped down as Britain’s foreign minister over concerns with Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit strategy.
He resigned just hours after Brexit Secretary David Davis quit.
The prime minister named Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt as Johnson’s replacement.
Last week, May and her cabinet held talks at Chequers, the prime minister’s country house, and came to an agreement for the U.K.’s future relationship with the European Union. The cabinet appeared to be unified on a Brexit negotiating position with the U.K. staying within a version of a customs union on trade and manufacturing, but excluding an EU alignment on exchanging services and freedom of movement.
This proposal was seen as a “soft option” for hard-line Brexit campaigners, like Johnson and Davis, and a betrayal of the original Brexit vote.
In his resignation letter, Johnson said the Brexit “dream is dying, suffocated by needless self-doubt.”
“It is as though we are sending our vanguard into battle with the white flags fluttering above them,” he wrote.
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