“My job is to seek to protect Scotland’s interests,” she told STV television.
May “has to make the process open and flexible”, she added.
– Morning of the long knives –
After six years as Cameron’s interior minister, May was viewed as a safe pair of hands to replace him, but began with a deep cull of some of her former cabinet colleagues.
She sacked long-serving finance minister George Osborne and Brexit-campaigning justice secretary Michael Gove — and gave Johnson the diplomatic brief.
“Cabinet’s Brexit bloodbath” the i newspaper said Friday.
“May’s radical reshuffle stuns the old guard”, said The Guardian’s front page.
It said May had shown steel, but it would “count for little without clarity” about its purpose.
The Times said she had brought “instability at the heart of her cabinet” by bringing in “several explosive egos”.
Controversy over Johnson’s appointment overshadowed the first full day of May’s premiership.
US President Barack Obama called May to congratulate her on Thursday, but White House spokesman Josh Earnest offered a tepid response to her choosing Johnson.
The “special relationship” between the two countries “transcends any single personality”, he said.
– ‘Chilling effects’ of Brexit –
US Trade Representative Michael Froman said Brexit opens new questions for negotiations over an ambitious transatlantic trade treaty.
He said he has already contacted London officials over how to organise US trade with Britain outside the EU.
European leaders have pressed May to move quickly in implementing Brexit, amid fears of the damage the continued uncertainty could do to the EU and the world economy.
New chancellor of the exchequer Philip Hammond warned Brexit was having “chilling effects” on the financial markets and said business investment decisions were being put on hold.
The Bank of England on Thursday held off on an anticipated cut in interest rates, keeping them unchanged at 0.50 percent, but signalled a possible cut next month.
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