If Boris Johnson appoints his cabinet on Brexit purity rather than ability, he is asking for trouble

Johnson is poised to name Priti Patel as home secretary, Iain Duncan Smith as chief whip and Geoffrey Cox to an EU ‘negotiating role’ if not Brexit secretary

Boris Johnson is expected to appoint Leave-voting MPs to key cabinet posts if he becomes prime minister on Wednesday. As we report today, he is poised to appoint Priti Patel as home secretary, Iain Duncan Smith as chief whip, and Geoffrey Cox to an EU “negotiating role” if not as Brexit secretary.

While the imminent prime minister’s decision-making is too chaotic for us to say with any degree of certainty that these appointments will be carried through, that they are being considered is an ominous indicator of the nature of the new administration.

It would seem that Mr Johnson, having campaigned for the leadership on the purist Brexit platform of promising what he cannot guarantee – namely to take Britain out of the EU, deal or no deal, on 31 October – is now going to double down by appointing Brexit purists to the top jobs.