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UK Prime Minister Theresa May on Friday announced her resignation as Conservative leader, clearing the way for a new PM to pick up the formidable challenge of delivering Brexit and reuniting a shattered Tory party.
May said in an emotional statement in Downing Street that she would resign as Tory leader on June 7, triggering a contest to succeed her in which the Eurosceptic former foreign secretary Boris Johnson is favourite to win.
In comments that highlighted the consequences for Brexit, Johnson said he was determined to leave the EU at the currently scheduled date, even if the UK failed to reach an agreement with the bloc in time, Financial Times reported.
“We will leave the EU on October 31, deal or no deal,” he said in a speech in Switzerland, adding that “of course” he would stand in the coming Tory leadership contest.
He added, “The job of our next leader has to be getting the UK properly out of the EU, putting Brexit to bed.”
Jeremy Hunt, Johnson’s successor as foreign secretary, also said that he would stand in the leadership contest, telling an event in Surrey that it was “only right that my party constituency should be the first to know”.
May said she would continue in a caretaker role as prime minister until a new Conservative leader is elected. That process — involving Tory MPs and party activists — is expected to be wrapped up before the end of July.
The PM finally yielded to the inevitable in a statement in Downing Street on Friday just after 10am, following a meeting with Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 committee of backbench Conservative MPs.
Sir Graham had made it clear that she stood no chance of winning parliamentary backing for her revamped Brexit deal and had lost the confidence of her party.
The PM admitted on the steps of Number 10 that she had been defeated by the challenge of delivering Brexit, having lost her parliamentary majority in the 2017 general election.
“I did my best,” she said.
May put her Brexit deal to the House of Commons but was defeated three times, initially by the biggest majority against a government in history, as Eurosceptics, Remainers and Labour united against her plan.
