Boris Johnson faces backlash as MPs seek his ouster for Brexit article

LONDON: UK lawmakers called for Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson to be fired after he threw himself back into the Brexit debate with a newspaper article that was seen as undercutting Prime Minister Theresa May days before she is set to refresh her own strategy for the split.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph a day after a failed bomb attack in London, the figurehead of last year’s campaign to leave the European Union outlined what he called a “glorious” vision for the UK outside of the bloc, prompting criticism he is undermining May and possibly reviving his own leadership ambitions.

Home Secretary Amber Rudd described it as “backseat driving”. “It puts Theresa May in an impossible position, I can’t understand why she hasn’t fired him,” Vince Cable, leader of the opposition Liberal Democrats, said on the BBC.

“He has a completely and utterly different view of what Brexit means from the rest of the cabinet,” he said, adding that the “civil war” in May’s government will hamper talks with the EU. Unidentified lawmakers within May’s Conservative Party were cited by newspapers, including the Mail on Sunday and the Observer, as demanding Johnson’s ouster for a move seen as a bid to replace her. Ruth Davidson, the party’s Scotland leader, tweeted that “on the day of a terror attack where Britons were maimed, just hours after the threat level is raised, our only thoughts should be on service”.

First Secretary of State Damian Green, effectively May’s deputy, told Sky News on Sunday that Johnson will not lose his job over his intervention or its timing. He insisted May’s government is united in its determination to deliver Brexit. “No, he isn’t,” Green said when asked about a possible Johnson dismissal. “The reason is that he, like the rest of the cabinet, like the prime minister, is all about wanting to get the best deal for the British people.”