Cameron enters Buckingham Palace as prime minister and leaves as a normal member of Parliament.
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Removal vans were spotted outside Downing Street on Tuesday, as Mr Cameron’s ministers paid tribute to him in his final cabinet meeting.
But the odds still are against early ballots, partly because Mrs May is known to be cautious about electoral adventures, so negotiations with the European Union beckon, and probably sooner than she wants. She was a lightweight who would never normally be seen as a potential prime minister, and her views were so extreme marriage should only be for Christians, not gays; bring back fox-hunting that she probably could not win a general election.
But it remains more than 12 percent below the $1.50 it touched on the night of the June 23 referendum, reflecting concerns that Brexit will hit trade, investment and growth. Their once-widely repeated British criticisms of the electoral system in the United States – in particular the long, confusing path to choosing a party’s nominee (case in point: 2016) – suddenly look hollow when compared to the weird and strikingly undemocratic leadership contest that just occurred in their own country.
She is unlikely to trigger Article 50 of the EU’s Lisbon Treaty – which will formally launch the process of separation and start the clock ticking on a two-year countdown to Britain’s actual departure – until next year. “I just get on with the job in front of me”.
Events of recent days have moved at such a pace that May finds herself in the top job 19 days after Cameron made a decision to stand down having failed to convince voters to stay in the EU. Just separating Britain from the European Union bureaucracy will require a whole new bureaucracy to be established to manage the process.
Investors will be watching Ms May’s first days in office closely but with greater optimism as the value of the pound, which fell by up to 15 per cent against the dollar and the euro in the days of the Brexit vote, has rebounded on news of her impending promotion.
Campaigner Laura Bates, who runs the Everyday Sexism website, wrote in an opinion piece: “This kind of meaningless, sexist commentary takes valuable attention away from what we should be concentrating on”.
The chief investment officer of BlackRock, the world’s biggest asset manager, predicted Britain would fall into recession in the coming year.
“Recession is now our base case”, Richard Turnill said.
Home Secretary May, the interior minister, was declared the new leader of the governing center-right Conservative Party on Monday after junior energy minister Andrea Leadsom, her only remaining challenger for the post, withdrew from the contest.
May will be the second female prime minister of Britain, following only Margaret Thatcher. But she must now unite the divisions in her party.
The only thing that Theresa May really succeeded in was keeping her head down while the rest of the “Remnants” actively promoted their cause. “Many of the positions May has taken as home secretary have won her credibility with the right-wing of the party, such as her position on deportation, her desire to leave the European Convention on Human Rights, her general position on immigration, and her willingness to stand up to police federation”, says Matt Cole, a teaching fellow in the department of history at Birmingham University.
The contest began when Mr Cameron, who has been prime minister since 2010, announced he would step down after losing the European Union referendum in June.
Despite being part of the Remain camp in the run-up to the referendum, May will push ahead with the UK’s divorce from Europe – “Brexit means Brexit”, she said in typically no-nonsense style. “It has been a privilege to serve the country I love”.
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Taking his last Cabinet meeting, the outgoing PM spoke of his “honour and pleasure” at having served for six years and told colleagues Mrs May was “the right person to lead the country wisely through the hard times ahead”.
