May supported remaining in the European Union, but has promised to give prominent “leave” campaigners key Cabinet roles in a bid to heal the party’s longstanding split over Europe.
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He touched down in post-Brexit Britain this week and met with the country’s outgoing leader David Cameron. At noon, Andrea Leadsom stepped down, making May leader-in-waiting.
“We will have a new prime minister by Wednesday evening”, Cameron said in a brief statement outside 10 Downing Street.
Then Mrs May paid a tribute to his leadership, from the historic formation of the Coalition Government with the Liberal Democrats in 20109 to the “difficult decisions” on public spending as ministers battled to balance the public finances.
She was elected to Parliament in 1997 in Maidenhead, west of London, and became chair of the Conservative Party in 2002. Colleagues say she shuns the old boys club traditions of parliament, preferring to spend any free time she has with her husband of 36 years, Philip. “No second referendum. The country voted to leave the European Union and as prime minister, I will make sure we leave the European Union”, she said.
“So I think that there’s nothing that rules her out, but. the permanent five just never say who they’re particularly going to support”.
“We the Conservatives will put ourselves at the service of ordinary working people and we will make Britain a country that works for everyone, whoever you are and wherever you’re from”, she said Monday. Prime Minister David Cameron, who announced he would resign after coming up on the losing side in the June 23 Brexit referendum, will step down by Wednesday.
One by one, figures within his party who had campaigned for a Brexit and were seen as potential successors to Cameron were knocked out of the running: MP Boris Johnson, Justice Secretary Michael Gove and Leadsom.
May and energy minister Andrea Leadsom had been due to contest a ballot of around 150,000 Conservative party members, with the result to be declared by September 9.
Mrs May’s only rival to succeed Mr Cameron as Conservative leader, Andrea Leadsom, pulled out earlier on Monday.
May, who has served as home secretary for the past six years, is now set to become Britain’s second female prime minister after Thatcher, although it was not clear exactly how soon that would happen. She pledged to form a strong, proven leadership to steer the country through what will be hard and uncertain economic and political times.
One of the two Conservative candidates to be British prime minister has apologized for any hurt she might have caused her rival with comments that suggested being a mother was an advantage in the job.
The comparison with Thatcher, the “Iron Lady” who governed from 1979 to 1990 and refashioned Britain in line with her free-market ideology, appeals to many Tories. Her decision came after she had to apologize for telling The Times newspaper that she would be a better prime minister than May because she has children.
“The economy doesn’t need uncertainty, it needs certainty, so in the next few days we should move to put her in the position of prime minister so she can lead the country and provide unity”, Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne told MSNBC in an interview in NY on Monday.
Even before arriving at 10 Downing Street, Mrs May was facing calls for a snap general election from Labour, who said it was “crucial” that the United Kingdom has a “democratically-elected prime minister” at a time of economic and political instability. Her allies accused supporters of May – Britain’s interior minister – of attempting to undermine Leadsom.
By contrast with the Conservative outcome, there is still major uncertainty about how the Labour leadership contest will work.
Most political reporters were covering the opposition Labour Party and reporting on Anna Eagle’s announcement that she was formally challenging leftist Jeremy Corbyn for the party’s leadership.
May’s accession is unlikely to end the political turbulence.
Oliver Daddow, senior lecturer in politics at Nottingham Trent University, said May would be well advised to call a snap election while Labour is in disarray.
May’s honeymoon may be short-lived.
May’s biggest challenge will be to map out the course of Britain’s withdrawal, a process still clouded in uncertainty, and to sort out new terms of trade with the other 27 European Union nations.
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