Liam Fox and Boris Johnson battling for control of Britain’s foreign policy, leak reveals
Tensions are already boiling over between the two Brexiteers just weeks after they were made Cabinet ministers
INTERNATIONAL Trade Secretary Liam Fox was accused of stirring up a Whitehall row after he suggested Foreign Office powers be placed under his control.
In a letter to Boris Johnson he moaned British overseas trade would not “flourish” if it remained under Bojo’s control.
But irritated Foreign Office officials threw out the claims instead sending over a small team to help out Dr Fox’s department.
Last night a Downing Street source said Theresa May was “distinctly unimpressed” by the episode which insiders described as a “power struggle”.
Department sources said the letter had “gone down like a lead balloon”.
Friction was expected between the ministers but not weeks after they were appointed.
In the letter Dr Fox questioned the ability of the Foreign Office to boost economic ties with overseas countries.
And he suggested Mr Johnson should concentrate on “diplomacy and security” including overseeing MI6 and GCHQ.
He asked that the Foreign Office’s economic diplomacy team be moved over to his department.
He wrote: “If we are to have a rational restructuring I think there is a reasonable proposition to transfer the economic diplomacy function from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office into the Department for International Trade”.
But a Foreign Office spokesman said yesterday: “We don’t comment on leaked documents. Alongside other Departments, the FCO are seconding a small number of staff with relevant expertise to the new Department for International Trade.
“This is all part of the cross Government effort to ensure we make a success of Brexit.”
Labour said Brexit ministers’ “turf war” was an inevitable consequence of Mrs May’s decision to split responsibility for delivering Brexit between three departments.
Shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry said: “This is a mess entirely of Theresa May’s making.
“She created these three separate departments not because it made sense in terms of coordinating Whitehall’s management of Brexit, but just to buy the loyalty of Liam Fox, Boris Johnson and David Davis.
“Now we see the inevitable dysfunction and turf wars, as they fight between them to grab work that should have been co-ordinated out of the Foreign Office alone.”