UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said he will step down during the next reshuffling of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s cabinet, the London-based Times reported.
“I’m not standing next time,” he told the Times, but ruled out going “prematurely” and forcing a by-election. “I went into politics in the Scottish parliament in 1999. That’s 24 years. I’ve spent well over seven years with three phones by my bed.”
The next cabinet reshuffling is expected in September and he will not stand in the next general election, the Times said.
Wallace, 53, replaced Penny Mordaunt as Defense Secretary when Boris Johnson took charge as prime minister in 2019. He’s retained the post under two subsequent premiers, Liz Truss and Sunak, and has helped shape the UK response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Most recently, Wallace’s ambitions to win the top job at NATO were dashed as the alliance extended Jens Stoltenberg’s tenure as secretary general for another year. Last month, President Joe Biden said that Wallace would be “very qualified” to lead the NATO alliance, but stopped short of backing his bid.
Wallace won notoriety at this week’s NATO summit in Vilnius after telling reporters that Ukrainian officials should show “a bit of gratitude” for the billions of dollars in military aid provided by allies. “You know, we’re not Amazon,” he said.
Wallace told Rishi Sunak his plans on June 16 but had hoped to make the announcement over the summer, when it would not have contributed to the narrative of Tory decline, the Times reported.
