Former health secretary takes over at Foreign Office, with Matt Hancock replacing him

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Jeremy Hunt has been named as foreign secretary to replace Boris Johnson, one of three men who supported remain during the referendum campaign who were promoted in an evening reshuffle.

The health secretary was called to Downing Street to be offered the job by Theresa May after a tumultuous day of resignations in response to her soft Brexit plans.

Matt Hancock, the culture secretary, was appointed as Hunt’s successor at health, while Jeremy Wright, the attorney general, is to become culture secretary.

The Tory MP Geoffrey Cox was later named as the new attorney general.



Hunt backed remain in 2016 and after the vote to leave the EU, considered running for the party leadership vacated by David Cameron on the basis of a Norway-style deal and a second referendum on the exit terms.

But he changed his mind and hit out at Airbus for warning about the impact Brexit uncertainty was having on jobs.

Hunt was the longest-serving health secretary since the creation of the NHS in 1948 and had refused to leave his job in January when May had asked him to do so during a reshuffle.



At that point, he persuaded the prime minister he still had a job to do, although that was before he helped secure a £20bn funding commitment for the health service at the time of its 70th birthday.

Hancock was a close ally of George Osborne, and was a strong remainer in the referendum campaign. As culture secretary, he sometimes adopted an interventionist approach, warning of the dangers of addiction to computer games and called on schools do more to ban mobile phones.



