Britain's new government signals PM is serious about Brexit

LONDON -- Theresa May wanted Britain to stay in the European Union, but the government she unveiled Thursday leaves little doubt Britain's new prime minister intends to fulfill voters' instructions and take it out of the 28-nation bloc.

May has appointed leading Euroskeptics -- including the unpredictable Boris Johnson and the formidable David Davis -- to top international jobs in a Cabinet that sweeps away many members of predecessor David Cameron's administration.

When she was running for the Conservative leadership, May promised "Brexit means Brexit," and her appointments of Johnson, Davis and arch-Euroskeptic Trade Secretary Liam Fox signal to EU leaders no matter what her own feelings, she will not be watering down Britain's commitment to leaving the EU.

Johnson, Britain's new foreign secretary, said Thursday it was an opportunity to be seized -- "reshaping Britain's global profile and identity as a great global player."

On her first full day in office, May dismantled Cameron's affluent metropolitan clique, dubbed the "Notting Hill set" after the former prime minister's trendy West London neighborhood.

Gone were Cameron allies, including ex-Treasury chief George Osborne, Cameron's friend and neighbor and like him the product of an elite private school. Gone, too, was Michael Gove, the justice secretary many Tories believe betrayed former ally Johnson by running for Conservative leader himself -- a job Johnson had long sought.

Gove's replacement, Justice Secretary Liz Truss, and the new Education Secretary Justine Greening both attended state schools, as did May.

The shuffle signals May values social mobility and self-made successes. It also reinforces a promise she made outside 10 Downing St. on Wednesday: "We will make Britain a country that works not for a privileged few, but for every one of us."

Some 52 percent of Britons who voted June 23 wanted to leave the EU -- a position uncompromisingly reflected in the international face of the new government through the triumvirate of Johnson, Davis and Fox.

Johnson, London's popular former mayor, helped the "leave" campaign win last month's referendum. But his appointment as foreign secretary caused some consternation around the world.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said Johnson had lied to the British people during the EU referendum and now had "his back against the wall to defend his country and to clarify his relationship with Europe."

Johnson is internationally famous -- but for rumpled eccentricity, Latin aphorisms and distinctly undiplomatic gaffes.

In April, Johnson suggested U.S. President Barack Obama had an "ancestral dislike" of Britain because he is part Kenyan. Asked late Wednesday to whom he would apologize first, Johnson said, "The United States of America will be at the front of the queue."

On his first day in the job Thursday, Johnson struck a sober tone. He shrugged off Ayrault's criticism, saying the French minister had sent him a "charming letter ... saying how much he looked forward to working together."

The U.S.-born, part-Turkish Johnson said Britain was quitting the EU, but "that does not mean in any sense leaving Europe."

"There is a massive difference between leaving the EU and our relations with Europe, which if anything I think are going to be intensified and built up at an intergovernmental level," he said.