British Prime Minister Theresa May stuck by her top team of ministers on Sunday, forgoing what has become a traditional post-election reshuffle in a sign of her diminished authority, days before Brexit talks are due to start.
May is seeking a deal with a small Northern Irish party to stay in power after she gambled away a parliamentary majority in an election she did not need to call. Conservative Party loyalists urged her to change her leadership style, while critics talked about her days being numbered.
The 60-year-old leader said she had tapped experience across the “whole of the Conservative Party” when she appointed Michael Gove, a long-serving cabinet minister who had clashed with May when she was home secretary, as agriculture minister.
It was a surprise move – Gove was sacked as justice minister by May last year after his bid to become party leader forced now-foreign minister Boris Johnson from the race, amid accusations of treachery and political backstabbing.
But after gambling away a majority in parliament, May needs to unite a disillusioned party around her.
Among her old ministers and loyalists, Priti Patel was reappointed as minister for international development, Chris Grayling as transport minister and Greg Clark as business minister, to name a few.
The Conservatives won 318 House of Commons seats in Thursday's election, eight short of an outright majority. Labour, the main opposition party, won 262.
.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&fmt=webp&width=720)
Concerns About DUP
May confirmed the appointments of many of her leading ministers, with only a few tweaks including the promotion of ally Damian Green to Cabinet Office minister, a senior role that administers the day-to-day running of the government.
May’s only hope of forming a government now is to win support from Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, which won 10 seats. She is seeking a so-called confidence and supply deal, which would involve the DUP supporting the Conservatives on key votes but not joining a formal coalition.
The DUP is strongly opposed to single-sex marriage and abortion, at odds with Conservative policies.
There are also concerns about the potential impact of the proposed arrangement on Northern Ireland's peace agreement, which relies in part on London being an impartial arbiter between those, such as the DUP, who want the province to remain in the United Kingdom and those who want it to be part of Ireland.
May's Future
With media asking whether May could remain in Downing Street after her electoral humiliation, ministers said now was not the time for the further uncertainty that a party leadership contest would bring.
Several newspapers said Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson was being urged by supporters to launch a leadership challenge, but he dismissed the reports as "tripe".
"Folks we need to calm down and get behind the prime minister," Johnson said, according to a screenshot of a WhatsApp group text message to Conservative lawmakers posted by an ITV news reporter on Twitter.
Even loyal supporters talked openly on Sunday about how May needed to change her leadership style, in particular her reliance on a tight-knit circle of advisers.
The political turmoil comes a week before Britain is due to start negotiating the terms of its exit from the European Union in talks of unprecedented complexity that are supposed to wrap up by the end of March 2019, when Britain actually leaves.
That timeline now looks even more ambitious than before, not least because May's electoral debacle has emboldened those within her own party who object to her "hard Brexit" approach of leaving the European single market and customs union.
(This article has been shortened for length.)
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)