Daily Times

Britain’s Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd resigned from the government and the ruling Conservative Party on Saturday in a protest over Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s handling of the country’s departure from the European Union.

Johnson says he wants to take Britain out of the EU on Oct. 31 with or without a deal with the bloc. But he lost his parliamentary majority this week and expelled 21 lawmakers from his Conservative Party’s group in parliament after they supported an opposition plan to try to block a no-deal exit.

Rudd, also a former interior minister who voted remain in the 2016 Brexit referendum, said the ousting of the rebel lawmakers, who included the grandson of Britain’s wartime leader Winston Churchill and two former finance ministers, was an “assault on decency and democracy.”

“I have resigned from Cabinet and surrendered the Conservative whip,” Rudd said on her Twitter account.

“I cannot stand by as good, loyal moderate Conservatives are expelled. I have spoken to the PM and my association chairman to explain,” she said.

Brexit remains up in the air more than three years after Britons voted to leave the EU. Options range from a turbulent no-deal exit to abandoning the whole endeavour.

In her resignation letter to Johnson, who succeeded Theresa May as prime minister in July, Rudd said: “I joined your cabinet in good faith: Accepting that ‘no deal’ had to be on the table, because it was the means by which we would have the best chance of achieving a new deal to leave on 31 October.

“However I no longer believe leaving with a deal is the government’s main objective.”

The Sunday Times reported that at least six cabinet members share Rudd’s views, with at least one also considering resigning. Rudd’s resignation caps a tumultuous week for Johnson that has also seen his own brother Jo quit the government, saying he was “torn between family loyalty and the national interest.”