British Prime Minister May has to rebuild her cabinet. This time it meets Secretary of Defense Williamson, who is said to have given information from a confidential meeting to the press.
Gavin Williamson was only one and a half years Minister of Defense. Prime Minister Theresa May had succeeded him in November 2017 as the successor to Michael Fallon, who had stumbled upon his behavior towards women.
Williamson stumbled upon another affair: The Daily Telegraph reported a week ago details from a secretive National Security Council meeting, including the decision that China’s mobile operator Huawei could, in principle, participate in the expansion of the UK 5G network if not even at the security-relevant core of the network.
The newspaper had reported how divisive the Cabinet had been in making this decision – and the US government had protested against Chinese participation in the expansion of the British network and threatened consequences for the cooperation of the security services.
lost trust
Williamson had denied that he had been the source of the indiscretion. „I never wore anything out of the National Security Council, nor would I ever do that,“ he told the BBC on Tuesday. But after an internal investigation into the affair, the prime minister now accused him of misconduct and said she had lost confidence in Williamson.
There is overwhelming evidence that he was the source for the newspaper report, May said in her letter of release to Williamson. Previously, he had refused to resign voluntarily. This would be taken as a confession, wrote Willamson in a letter to May, which he also posted on Twitter. So May had to fire the Minister downright.
Criticism in your own party
May’s decision was not received so enthusiastically in her party. The conservative chairman of the defense committee in the House of Commons, Julian Lewis, criticized the expulsion. „That’s a loss,“ he said. „I think, for example, how Gavin fought successfully against the cuts in defense spending, and in the end he even had more on his budget, he was good for the defense.“
At the same time Lewis turned sharply against Huawei’s involvement in the expansion of the British mobile network. „If Gavin really was the source, it’s probably because he, like me, is worried about the insane notion of having the next generation of our mobile network built by a company controlled by the Chinese Communists.“
Williamson had because of its rugged nature many opponents in the government apparatus. His political friends sprinkle the version that he has fallen victim to a conspiracy of these opponents.
Brexit hardliner succeeds
New Secretary of Defense is now the former Development Aid Minister, Penny Mordaunt. She is the first woman in this department and for the first time in a long time someone who served herself: in the Royal Navy, most recently as a second lieutenant.
She is the daughter of a paratrooper. However, Mordaunt could mess up the complicated Brexit arithmetic in the Cabinet. Williamson was loyal to the Prime Minister in his former role as faction leader, while Mordaunt was one of the hard Brexite camps who would rather leave the EU without an agreement than with the treaty negotiated between London and Brussels.
