Hardline Eurosceptic Baker turns down Johnson job offer

Steve Baker, a prominent Eurosceptic Tory MP, has turned down a junior job under Boris Johnson in the first setback to the new prime minister’s sweeping reshuffle of the UK government.

Mr Baker was offered a job in the cabinet office but said he did not want to repeat the “powerlessness” he felt in his old job as a junior minister in Dexeu, the Whitehall department in charge of Brexit planning, before quitting over Theresa May’s exit deal with Brussels.

His disgruntled refusal of the post underlined the pressure Mr Johnson faces from hardline anti-EU Conservatives to deliver on his promise — repeatedly made since he took office on Wednesday — to take the UK out of the bloc by the scheduled departure date of October 31, with or without a deal with Brussels.

“With regret, I have turned down a ministerial job,” he said on Twitter, before warning the new prime minister about the consequences of a failure to meet his pledge of leaving the EU in the autumn. “I have total confidence in Boris Johnson to take us out of the EU by October 31,” he said. “Disaster awaits otherwise.”

Mr Baker, vice-chair of the hardline anti-EU Tory group the ERG, resigned as Brexit minister in July 2018 along with David Davis, the then Brexit secretary.

He will now remain on the backbenches although the group’s chairman Jacob Rees-Mogg has joined the cabinet for the first time as leader of the House of Commons.

Nevertheless, another prominent ERG member, Mark Francois, said the group would oppose any attempt by Mr Johnson to bring back the withdrawal agreement secured last December by Mrs May, even if he succeeded in removing the Irish backstop, which seeks to prevent a hard border in Ireland.

“If there were any attempt to revive the Withdrawal Agreement, even without the backstop, the ERG would vote against it,” he told the BBC on Thursday night.

The Johnson reshuffle, which began on Wednesday evening, continued into Friday with more junior ministerial roles announced. The prime minister gave jobs to several close allies including Kit Malthouse, who is now police minister, and Conor Burns, who becomes a trade minister.

Nigel Adams, another longstanding supporter of Mr Johnson, has become the new sports minister.

Ministers sacked on Thursday included Stephen Hammond, a junior health minister, and Harriett Baldwin, who was a Foreign Office minister.

Mr Hammond said he remained “absolutely opposed” to a no-deal Brexit, joining a hard core of former ministers — led by ex-chancellor Philip Hammond — who are determined to block a disorderly departure from the EU.