Key Brexit Figure Predicts UK's PM May Will Serve 'All Five Years'

The British Cabinet minister responsible for overseeing the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union ("Brexit") predicted Friday morning that despite a very narrow re-election of the ruling Conservative Party earlier this year, Theresa May "will last five years" as prime minister.

"My inclination is that the government will last the five years," David Davis, secretary of state for Exiting the European Union, told Newsmax. "We have changed our structure [of terms for prime minister] recently."

Davis, 68, spoke to us following remarks delivered to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington. A Member of Parliament for 30 years and protégé of the late Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, he lost a bid for leadership of the Conservative Party in 2005 to future Prime Minister David Cameron.

With May on thin political ice since Conservatives barely clung to power in the last election, several surveys of Conservative Members of Parliament have shown Davis a strong favorite to become prime minister if the job becomes open.

Davis, however, made clear he doesn't think May is going anywhere soon.

Referring to the Fixed Term Parliaments Act of 2011, he explained that "it used to be the prime ministers would call the election whenever they liked. Now we have a five-year term, which actually makes it difficult to call it early."

He then went on to tell our correspondent that "in terms of the Brexit negotiations, your profession has great fun with this — the politics of Brexit. The real issue of Brexit is mostly practical. What sort of deal do we need? What sort of deal can we sell the other European countries? What is in the mutual best interests of all of us? That's the driver."

Davis added that the "mutual best interests" are "the same driver within the [British] parliamentary arithmetic." He flatly predicted that "there is a majority to carry through Brexit in the [British] parliament and it will get done in time [by 2019]."

When Newsmax asked about the German elections September 26 and the impact on Brexit of a handsome victory by Chancellor Angela Merkel, Davis replied that "we're very careful about commenting on the politics of other countries. It gets us into unending trouble if we break the rules, so I'm going to be a bit careful how I respond.

"The primary effect of the German elections on the Brexit process is the timing," Davis told us, "It's going to happen in September 26 but, normally, because of the system, it takes one to three months to form a new coalition [after the election]. Sometimes longer.

He emphasized that "it's the new government that's going to be important. But in the politics of Europe, Germany is enormously important — the biggest country in economic terms, biggest in population, paymaster in many ways, has a lot of influence. It's a founder member [of the EU]. It's hard to overestimate its influence."

Davis declined to guess the outcome of the German election. But he did admit "I have my views, but I'm optimistic about it. The outcome of the election will be to accelerate the process [Brexit] once it has happened."

John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.