Senior Brexiteer Steve Baker has stepped down as chair of the influential European Research Group of Tory MPs.
The former junior Brexit minister indicated he was content with Boris Johnson’s vision for leaving the European Union, and would now “give way to others on this issue”.
In his resignation letter, he said the prime minister “has the policy, the mandate and the majority he needs to deliver an exit from the EU worth having”.
The European Research Group (ERG) became notorious for being a thorn in Theresa May’s side, voting down her Brexit withdrawal agreement three times and effectively forcing her out of power.
In July, Baker rejected a ministerial job under new prime minister Johnson, saying he could not “repeat [the] experience of powerlessness” he had felt.
Last year, Baker introduced himself on Sky News as “Brexit hardman Steve Baker”. ERG members were also known as the “Spartans” by some.
In the sign-off to his resignation letter, the MP for Wycombe writes: “While historians will one day judge, I suppose we have wielded more power from the back benches than any others in the long history of our party and county. Thank god we have succeeded.”