Irish News Editorial (Belfast). Friday, July 15, 2016

The composition of the new UK cabinet indicates that Theresa May is determined not to accept the blame in the increasingly likely event that forthcoming Brexit negotiations result in chaos.

She has appointed two prominent Leave campaigners to key roles, with David Davis named as secretary of state for exiting the EU and the ludicrous figure of Boris Johnson sent to the foreign office.

Mr. Davis has a long history as a convinced Eurosceptic, and may be forgiven by his  colleagues on the Conservative right if he fails to cut a credible deal with Brussels, but Mr. Johnson is no longer taken seriously in any wing of the party and looks like a convenient scapegoat when attempts to trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty almost inevitably run into major problems.

His previous attempts at international diplomacy were summed up when he described Hillary Clinton, who is odds-on to be the next US president, as someone who had “dyed blond hair and pouty lips, and a steely blue stare, like a sadistic nurse in a mental hospital”.

Mrs May is on record as declaring that “Brexit means Brexit” but placing Mr Johnson in the front line represents an effective admission that political casualties will follow as a messy compromise emerges.

While she can use a simplistic message to illustrate the result of the EU vote on June 23, she will be acutely aware that it did not provide any answers to the enormous dilemmas which lie ahead over trade agreements and the free movement of people.

There has always been a strong case for a second referendum in which specific proposals on these and other vital issues are put to the electorate, and such a prospect was openly floated by the director of the Leave campaign, Dominic Cummings, in an interview with The Economist last January.

The fact that the new prime minister does not have a personal mandate to govern, and only came to power because of David Cameron’s EU misjudgments, leaves her in an even more vulnerable position in the forthcoming debate.

A second referendum would be warmly welcomed in Ireland as the best way of avoiding the appalling prospect of enforced controls along the sole land border between the UK and the EU.

The incoming northern secretary of state, James Brokenshire, as a supporter of the Remain side, can at least bring a more sympathetic approach to these vital arguments than his predecessor, Theresa Villiers.

We are facing a defining period in terms of all the relationships between Ireland, Britain and Europe, and it is essential that Mr Brokenshire insists artificial barriers are firmly avoided.