Cameron, who has been United Kingdom prime minister since 2010, had made a decision to leave office after the the referendum on Europe gave victory to Brexit supporters.
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But the surprise decision by Energy Secretary Andrea Leadsom to bow out of the Tory leadership race threw the slow-walk approach into doubt.
The 52 per cent to 48 per cent vote to quit the European Union after 43 years of membership has plunged the economy into uncertainty and Britain’s two main parties into turmoil.
“We should now move as quickly as possible to ensure Theresa May can take over as leader”. At noon, Andrea Leadsom stepped down, making May leader-in-waiting.
Shortly after the announcement, David Cameron emerged from 10 Downing Street, giving a brief speech saying that he will hand over to Theresa May within 48 hours.
Cameron will leave Downing Street and go to Buckingham Palace to resign. “Isn’t this the new sort of Tory party?”
John Key says he doesn’t know Britain’s soon-to-be prime minister Theresa May very well but she’s a straight shooter and others speak highly of her.
“The need of course to negotiate the best deal for Britain in leaving the European Union, and to forge a new role for ourselves in the world”.
Mr Hall said Mrs May had the “experience, credentials and strength” to lead a post-Brexit Great Britain and he believed she was determined to secure the best deals for the country. “She has my full support as our next Prime Minister”.
Mrs May spoke about the “warmth and respect” colleagues felt for the Prime Minister and paid tribute to the way that he had “led the country through a hard time” owing to the hard economic circumstances he inherited in 2010, the increasing terror threat and the need for “difficult decisions” on public spending.
That process might start sooner than expected if the European Union sticks to its insistence that the new British Prime Minister would have just days to officially set the Brexit in motion.
Conservative lawmakers narrowed the field from five contenders to just Leadsom and May. Some 150,000 party members were due to choose between them in the coming weeks, with the result to be announced in September. But Leadsom unexpectedly withdrew on Monday, removing the need for a nine-week leadership contest.
May, the home secretary since 2010, praised Mr. Cameron for his stewardship of the Tory party and the country. “She is strong. She is competent”. Former Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke was caught on microphone last week telling a colleague, “Theresa’s a bloody hard woman – but you and I worked for Margaret Thatcher”.
► Leadsom has apologised for her comment directed at May, who has no children, that being a mother was an advantage, in a Times of London interview.
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Ms May’s allies flatly rejected calls from senior opposition figures for a snap election following the selection of a new Prime Minister. She describes herself as a practising Christian and says she owns over 100 cookery books.
