Dominic Grieve: Boris Johnson should resign

Boris Johnson. Photograph: Peter Nicholls/WPA Rota/PA Images. - Credit: Press Association Images

Former attorney general Dominic Grieve has called for Boris Johnson to resign from the Cabinet.

Grieve, who has been one of the leading Tory critics of the Government’s Brexit stance, rounded on the Foreign Secretary after Johnson described a customs partnership deal with the EU being considered by Prime Minister Theresa May as ‘crazy’.

Grieve accused the Foreign Secretary of ‘destroying’ collective Cabinet responsibility with his comments on Brexit.

Asked if he thought Johnson should quit the Government, Mr Grieve told The Guardian: ‘He should resign. Yes.’

Grieve added: ‘The Prime Minister has a difficult task and I don’t think it’s helped by this tendency of the Foreign Secretary to express himself.

‘If you are making policies through speeches that are contradicting some of the policy development your colleagues are embarked on, you are destroying collective responsibility.

‘And, ultimately, you will utterly undermine the ability to provide democratic governance.

‘That’s what he’s doing – and he shouldn’t do it. If he continues doing it, what he does is make government impossible.

‘I think it’s a profound mistake and hugely damaging. If you don’t like a policy, you leave the Government.

‘That’s what you should do. If there are problems, you either accept them or you have to go. That’s your choice.’

In a thinly veiled swipe at Johnson, the former attorney general said: ‘I feel greater loyalty to the Prime Minister than, apparently, some members of her Cabinet may have.’