Theresa May announces her resignation
Prime minister to leave on 7 June, drawing three-year
premiership to a close
Today’s political developments - live updates
Heather Stewart
Fri 24 May 2019 10.06 BST Last modified on Fri 24 May 2019
10.18 BST
Theresa May has bowed to intense pressure from her own party
and named 7 June as the day she will step aside as Conservative leader, drawing
her turbulent three-year premiership to a close.
She made the announcement after a meeting with Graham Brady,
the chair of the backbench 1922 Committee – which was prepared to trigger a
second no-confidence vote in her leadership if she refused to resign.
May’s fate was sealed after a 10-point “new Brexit deal”,
announced in a speech on Tuesday, infuriated Tory backbenchers and many of her
own cabinet – while falling flat with the Labour MPs it was meant to persuade.
The leader of the House of Commons, Andrea Leadsom, resigned
on Wednesday, rather than present the Brexit bill to parliament.
A string of other cabinet ministers had also expressed
concerns, including Sajid Javid, Jeremy Hunt, Chris Grayling and David Mundell.
In particular, they rejected May’s promise to give MPs a
vote on a second referendum as the Brexit bill passed through parliament, and
implement the result – which they felt came too close to endorsing the idea.
The prime minister will remain in Downing Street, to
shoulder the blame for what are expected to be dire results for her party at
Thursday’s European elections – and to host Donald Trump when he visits.
The 1922 Committee will set out the terms of a leadership
contest, to kick off on 7 June, which is expected to last perhaps six weeks.
The former foreign secretary Boris Johnson is the
front-runner to be Britain’s next prime minister; but more than a dozen senior
Tory figures are considering throwing their hats into the ring.
In the cabinet, Rory Stewart has already said he will stand,
while Jeremy Hunt, Michael Gove, Penny Mordaunt and Sajid Javid are all likely
contenders.
May’s departure came after three years of wrangling with
Brexiters on her own backbenches about what future relationship with the
European Union they would be prepared to accept.
That became considerably more difficult when she lost her
majority at the 2017 general election, after spearheading what was widely
regarded as a disastrous campaign, promising “strong and stable leadership in
the national interest”.
Brexit is likely to dominate the race to succeed May, with
time increasingly tight for a new team to set out any new direction before the
deadline of 31 October for Britain’s departure from the EU.
May’s longtime friend Damian Green, the former first
secretary of state, defended her record on Friday.
“All prime ministers, in the end, take responsibility for
what happens on their watch, but I think that it’s undeniable that suddenly and
unexpectedly becoming prime minister after the seismic shock of the Brexit
referendum meant that she was dealt an extremely difficult hand to play. And
the truth is that having an election a year later, which cut the Conservative
party’s majority, then [made it] impossible.”
Green told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “The fact that
parliament has not been able to get a Brexit deal through has led to the
impatience, bordering into contempt, for the political class and the amount of
hostility and borderline violence is something we have not known for a very
very long time.”
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