Is Theresa May’s government in peril over Brexit?

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• Judy Woodruff:

  It's been two years since the United Kingdom voted for Brexit, to leave the European Union. But with the deadline to leave just nine months away, the British government is in crisis now over how to separate from the E.U.

  And, as Jeffrey Brown reports, two abrupt resignations over the last day have only escalated tensions.

• Jeffrey Brown:

  British Prime Minister Theresa May faced rising doubts and derisive laughter in Parliament after losing two key ministers.

• Theresa May:

  I want to pay tribute to my right honorable friends.

• Jeffrey Brown:

  David Davis resigned as chief Brexit negotiator late Sunday. And, today, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson followed suit.

  In his resignation letter, Johnson said the Brexit dream is dying. He warned Britain is instead headed for a semi-Brexit and the status of a colony. Davis said may is giving — quote — "too much away too easily" to the E.U. on trade and regulations.

• Theresa May:

  I do not agree about the best way of delivering our shared commitment to honor the result of the referendum.

• Jeffrey Brown:

  Addressing the House of Commons, the prime minister defended plans hammered out last Friday to maintain the same regulations for goods and agriculture as the rest of the E.U.

• Theresa May:

  Some have suggested that under this arrangement, the U.K. wouldn't be able to do trade deals. They are wrong. When we have left the E.U., the U.K. will have our own independent trade policy.

• Jeffrey Brown:

  In June, 2016, Britons voted for the historic referendum to divorce from the European Union.

  A year later, British and E.U. negotiators began negotiating on a raft of issues, including the rights of U.K. citizens living in the rest of Europe, and the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom.

  Today, Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the opposition Labor Party, said the effort is clearly in chaos.

• Jeremy Corbyn:

  We have a crisis in government. Two secretaries of state have resigned, and still we are no clearer on what the future relationship with our nearest neighbors and biggest partners will look like.

  It is clear this government cannot secure a good deal for Britain.

• Jeffrey Brown:

  Now, with less than nine months left before the deadline for Brexit, May has asked her Cabinet to speed up preparations for a — quote — "range of potential outcomes," including one with no deal.

  But she also now faces growing questions about whether her government will survive to finish the job.

  Late today, Prime Minister May named the present health secretary Jeremy Hunt, to replace Boris Johnson as foreign secretary.

  For more, I'm joined by the United Kingdom's former ambassador to Washington, Sir Peter Westmacott. He also served as envoy to France and Turkey, and was an opponent of Britain leaving the European Union.

  Welcome to you.

  First, how much of a surprise or political bombshell was this?

• Sir Peter Westmacott:

  I don't think it was a big surprise that David Davis, the U.K. government's negotiator with Brussels, resigned.

  But I think people were a bit surprised when Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, followed quickly afterwards, because it was only on Friday that Theresa May managed to get all her ministers in a room in the same house, and everybody signed on to what she thought was a compromise deal that she could take to Brussels with a reasonable chance of getting a settlement.

• Jeffrey Brown:

  So an argument over a hard or soft Brexit, remind people what that means and what kind of issues are involved.

• Sir Peter Westmacott:

  Sounds a simple question, but it's quite a tough one to answer.

• Jeffrey Brown:

  Of course, yes.

• Sir Peter Westmacott:

  Really, it's about, how far does the United Kingdom sever all its links with the European Union, of which it's been a member since 1973?

  Many of us who think that Brexit is a risky, if not destructive thing to do for the United Kingdom would like the amount of change to be minimal. But there are people who have a strong sense about sovereignty, about taking back control, about Britain only enacting its own laws, about not being told what to do by people in Brussels, all that sort of thing, who want total change, so no customs union, no single market, our own regulations, our own laws.

  And that would be very complicated, given that we have become so integrated with Brussels, with the European Union. Half of our foreign trade goes to the other European countries and so on.

  So, the debate is about, do you remain as close as possible in terms of trade and other relationships with the European Union, or do you cut it all off and start again as an independent country and negotiate all your own agreements with other countries and the rest of the world?

  And that's been the debate.

• Jeffrey Brown:

  So, Boris Johnson, of course, was one of the original faces of Brexit, a strong proponent of it.

  What seemed to be the calculation now in his walking, stepping away from the government that is supposed to implement it?

• Sir Peter Westmacott:

  Well, Boris Johnson originally was a pro-European, and then, for whatever reason, he decided he would back the leave campaign, and he was obviously surprised when the referendum was won.

  And then he was given the job of foreign secretary to be part of the team that should make it work. To be honest, I think most people in this country think that Boris Johnson's main calculation has been, what do I need to do to become the next prime minister of the United Kingdom?

  And I think he's seen now also is that the compromise that Mrs. May cobbled together two years after beginning this whole process was one which wasn't the end of the road, that it was a compromise which would require a whole lot of more concessions to Brussels once the real negotiations on this document got going, because this, after all, was simply an attempt to bring the British government's Conservative Party together.

  It was not something which had been negotiated with the guys in Brussels. And I think what Boris saw and David Davis saw was something which was moving away from a hard sovereignty-focused Brexit towards something which was much softer and where Britain would still be part of the single market, part of the customs union, subject to elements of European court jurisdiction, and also not totally separate from the free movement of labor, because immigration has been a big part of the politics of this whole thing for the last two or three years.

• Jeffrey Brown:

  So, is Theresa May's government thought to be in peril? Is there a chance for a — first to come would be a no-confidence vote.

• Sir Peter Westmacott:

  I think this is a political crisis because she's lost two very senior ministers.

  I doubt if there will be a no-confidence vote in the Parliament, because that would risk having an early general election and bringing in the Labor Party of Jeremy Corbyn. And none of her party and her supporters would want that.

  Separately, there could be a challenge within her own Conservative Party to her own leadership. That's not the same thing as losing a majority in Parliament. She, of course, hasn't got a majority in Parliament. She relies on 10 Ulster Unionists from Northern Ireland to give her a working majority.

  But it is possible that, within her own party, the divisions on this British issue are so strong, that people might decide that they want to challenge her for the leadership. That's a separate issue, and that's harder to predict.

  My hunch is that there won't be enough people to overthrow her from within the party, and my hunch is that there won't be a lost motion of confidence in the Parliament.

  But I think we have to say that, for the moment, she is weakened, because the deal she's put together has clearly not done the job it was intended to do, which was to reunite her party.

• Jeffrey Brown:

  All right, Sir Peter Westmacott, thank you very much.

• Sir Peter Westmacott:

  My pleasure.