Johnson, Fox and Davis won’t get along but together they will get us a good Brexit deal

Last Monday it was announced that Boris Johnson was going to have to share Chevening, the Foreign Secretary’s country residence, with David Davis and Liam Fox, his fellow Brexiteers.

When the BBC rang me, that afternoon, to interview me on the announcement, I told them I was sitting in Chevening, the first time I had been back since I was Foreign Secretary in 1997!

The question of which Minister can use a country house is, of course, relatively trivial but, on this occasion it had a serious political significance.

The new Prime Minister was making it clear that Boris Johnson was not in sole charge of foreign policy but would be sharing it with his two Cabinet colleagues. He starts his job weaker than previous Foreign Secretaries but that could change if he makes the successful transition from celebrity to statesman.

I know David Davis and Liam Fox well. Both of them served under me when I was Foreign Secretary in John Major’s Government.

Both of them are bright and focused. Their euroscepticism is much deeper and has lasted longer than that of Boris Johnson. That does not, however, mean that they will get on well with each other.

David Davis and Liam Fox will have quite different tasks. Davis will be negotiating with the European Commission and other European governments on the relationship Britain will have with the EU after we leave. That will not just be about trade but will cover many other issues such as co-operation on police and justice issues, rights of residence, financial services, the social chapter and mutual recognition of professional qualifications.

Liam Fox, as Minister for International Trade, will spend most of his time talking to the United Sates, to India, Australia and many others about the bilateral trade agreements that will determine our ability to export to their markets and their opportunities to export to ours. All our trade agreements, for the last 40 years, have been negotiated on our behalf by the European Union. Replacing these agreements with dozens of others will be a mammoth but unavoidable task.

All three of these Ministers have considerable egos and each, inevitably, will try and extend their power at the expense of the other. That happens a lot in politics and we need not worry about it too much.

It is worth remembering that the Prime Minister has created a Cabinet Committee on Europe, which she will chair, on which all three will sit and which will have the last word on any proposals before they go to the full Cabinet.

Theresa May has already shown that she is both able and determined. She will bang heads together if this unprecedented Trinity squabble amongst themselves.

It is right that Boris Johnson is not being made responsible for the detailed , day to day, negotiations on the terms of Brexit. That would have been true whoever had been made Foreign Secretary.

When we joined the EU forty years ago a separate cabinet minister was given the task of leading the negotiations.

The Foreign Secretary has to look after the rest of the world which is, itself, a full time job. In any event both he and the Prime Minister have to be held in reserve for when negotiations hit a logjam. It is they, especially the Prime Minister, not Davis or Fox who will do the final deals with the other Prime Ministers and Foreign Ministers.

Theresa May has been astute in the way she has handed out these responsibilities. The cynics have suggested that she must have said to Boris Johnson, David Davis and Liam Fox, three leading Brexiteers, “You have created this mess. You can sort it out.”

The Prime Minister may have thought that but I do not believe that it explains her decisions. I am sure that she had another fundamental consideration in mind.

In no negotiation does one side get 100% of what they want leaving the other side with zero. Compromises are unavoidable. Skillful negotiation means that you achieve your main objectives while making compromises that are important to your negotiating partners but not as important to you.

The Prime Minister is aware that such are the emotions and suspicions on anything involving the European Union that any compromise will be denounced by hardline Brexiteers as a betrayal of the national interest.

The crucial compromise will be whether we can live with some form of free movement of labour in order to ensure our access to the single market. I am very doubtful that that will prove possible.

It is much better, in any event, that the necessary compromises are recommended by Ministers whose commitment to Brexit is unquestioned than by Ministers who wanted us to Remain and may be suspected of still seeking some way of avoiding the verdict of the electorate.

Do not expect early announcements. We know that Article 50, which will trigger the commencement of the negotiations themselves, will not be activated until early next year. That is entirely sensible as it will need months to prepare ourselves for the most fundamental and historic negotiation in which the United Kingdom has been involved for over half a century.