>
UK Prime Minister, Theresa May has appointed Jeremy Hunt as the new Foreign Secretary. Hunt, who was moved from his positin as Health Secretary, replaces Boris Johnson, who resigned on Monday.
Johnson’s departure followed that of Brexit Secretary David Davis and several junior officials.
Culture Secretary Matt Hancock replaces Mr Hunt as health secretary.
The UK has set March 29, 2019 to leave the European Union, but there is yet to be an agreement on how trade will work between the UK and the EU afterwards.
There have been differences within the Conservative Party over what shape Brexit should take – although on Friday, at the prime minister’s country retreat at Chequers, the cabinet reached a “collective” agreement on proposals for the future relationship between the EU and UK.
Speaking after his appointment, Hunt said: “This is a time when the world is looking at us as a country, wondering what type of country we are going to be in a post-Brexit world.
“What I want to say to them is Britain is going to be a dependable ally, a country that stands up for the values that matter to the people of this country, and will be a strong confident voice in the world.”
Mr Johnson said in his resignation letter that Mrs May’s proposals for post-Brexit trade would leave Britain a “colony” of the EU.
The Brexit “dream is dying, suffocated by needless self-doubt”, he said.
Instead, “we appear to be heading for a semi-Brexit, with large parts of the economy still locked in the EU system, but with no UK control over that system.”