British Prime Minister David Cameron has named arch-eurosceptic Philip Hammond as his new foreign secretary as he unveiled a major cabinet reshuffle before next year’s general election.
Former defence secretary Hammond, whose appointment was confirmed on Cameron’s Twitter feed, supports Britain leaving the European Union in a referendum in 2017 unless significant powers are returned to London.
His appointment followed Monday’s surprise resignation of William Hague, who in recent months had worked closely with Hollywood star Angelina Jolie on a high-profile campaign to end rape as a weapon of war and is expected to continue work in this field.
Tuesday’s reshuffle is the biggest since Cameron’s Conservative-led coalition government took power in 2010 and marks a bid to broaden his party’s appeal ahead of the election. He has promised a referendum on Britain leaving the EU in three years’ time if he remains prime minister beyond 2015.
Newspapers billed the reshuffle as a cull of the “pale, male and stale” which would open the door for a new wave of women to get ministerial jobs.
Cameron said Hague, who was leader of the centre-right Tories between 1997 and 2001, had been “one of the leading lights of the Conservative Party for a generation”.
He will continue to serve as a minister with responsibility for managing business in the House of Commons until the general election, when he will step down as an MP.
