24th May, 2019
British Prime Minister Theresa May on Friday announced in an emotional address that she will step down as Conservative leader on June 7 after failing to persuade MPs to support her Brexit deal.
“It is and will always remain a matter of deep regret to me that I have not been able to deliver Brexit,” May, her voice breaking with emotion, said in a statement outside her Downing Street residence.
The resignation will signal the formal start of a leadership contest during which May would remain as caretaker prime minister.
“I will resign as leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party on Friday, 7th June,” May said.
“The process for electing a new leadership should begin in the following week,” she said.
The leadership race is expected to take several weeks.
May, who took charge in the aftermath of the 2016 EU referendum, was forced to make way following a Conservative mutiny over her ill-fated strategy to take Britain out of the European Union.
She will become one of the country’s shortest-serving post-WWII prime ministers, remembered for presiding over one of the most chaotic periods in its modern political history
“I will shortly leave the job that it has been the honour of my life to hold — the second female prime minister but certainly not the last,” May said.
“I do so with no ill-will, but with enormous and enduring gratitude to have had the opportunity to serve the country I love,” she added.
May was pushed into the humiliating spectacle of a hastily arranged resignation announcement following a meeting with the head of the Conservative Party committee in charge of leadership elections.
She had previously vowed to step aside once her unpopular EU divorce deal had passed parliament, and this week launched a short-lived bid for lawmakers to approve it in early June.
MPs have rejected the withdrawal agreement she struck with EU leaders last year three times, brutally weakening May on each occasion.
With her resignation, the manner of Britain’s withdrawal from the bloc appears more ambiguous than ever. AFP/NAN