Jo Johnson – Who Quit Government To Campaign For A Second Referendum – Has Joined His Brother's Brexiteer Cabinet

What exactly is it about your brother being prime minister that made you change your mind, Mr Johnson? 🤔🤔🤔
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Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the past 24 hours, you’ve probably heard about some of the *interesting* appointments Boris Johnson has made to his new cabinet.

From his decision to make Priti Patel home secretary – even after she was effectively forced to resign from her last cabinet jobto his appointment of Jacob Rees-Mogg as leader of the Commons, the new PM’s reshuffle has certainly raised some eyebrows.

What you might not have noticed was the quiet re-introduction of Jo Johnson – the prime minister’s younger brother and a former Remain campaigner – back around the famous green table.

It was announced on Wednesday night that the Orpington MP was the new minister for business, energy and industrial strategy, as well as an education minister.

Conservative MP Jo Johnson
Conservative MP Jo Johnson
Luke Dray via Getty Images

Accusing the then-PM of offering MPs “vassalage or chaos” with the deal she had brokered with the EU, Johnson said he had “very serious concerns” about whether the UK could make a success of leaving the EU.

In a blog post published after he quit as transport minister, he said the public was “never going to have a Brexit that matches in any way the fantastical promises of the false prospectus that was made”.

Meanwhile, he warned that a no-deal Brexit would “inflict untold damage on our nation”.

Not exactly in line with BoJo’s vow to pull the UK out of the EU “do or die” on October 31 – even if it means a no-deal Brexit.

“This would not be about re-running the 2016 referendum, but about asking people whether they want to go ahead with Brexit now that we know the deal that is actually available to us, whether we should leave without any deal at all or whether people on balance would rather stick with the deal we already have inside the European Union,” he said.

It’s yet to be seen whether Johnson (Jo, that is) will continue to push these ideas at cabinet now his big brother is in charge.

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