With Conservative party’s move ensuring a female lead to replace Prime Minister David Cameron, two women will battle it out to be the next PM of UK.
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So the British Conservative Party (the party now in power) held formal elections, and on Tuesday the field narrowed to two candidates: Home Secretary Theresa May and Energy Minister Andrea Leadsom.
The results eliminated from the race Justice Secretary Michael Gove, who received 46 votes.
Theresa May (left) and Andrea Leadsom are the two remaining candidates in the Conservative Party leadership contest in Britain.
The victor will replace Prime Minister David Cameron, who resigned after Britain decided last month in a referendum to leave the European Union in a vote dubbed “Brexit”.
The contest now shifts to the Conservative Party rank and file, the 150,000 card-carrying party members whose votes will determine their next leader and thus prime minister.
Anti-EU campaigner and ex-London mayor Boris Johnson, who is backing Mrs Leadsom, said: ‘She is now well placed to win and replace the absurd gloom in some quarters with a positive, confident and optimistic approach, not just to Europe, but to government all round’. “There must be no attempts to remain inside the European Union, no attempts to rejoin it through the back door and no second referendum”. Graphic shows results of second leadership ballot.
And she is likely to attract votes from eurosceptic activists who want a “Brexit Prime Minister” to oversee withdrawal negotiations with European Union chiefs.
May had an upper hand in the first stage of selections, which was done via voting by 330 party members of House of Commons.
“She’s the future. What you want is someone who’s not been in the Westminster bubble, she’s had a real job in the real world and that’s what people are looking for”.
The choice over who will run the country until 2020 now lies in the hands of Conservative Party members, who will vote in their leader by September 9.
Gove, conceding defeat, said he was, “really fortunate to have some of the brightest and the best of the parliamentary party on my side”, and described the two remaining candidates as formidable politicians.
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She told the BBC that questions about her career record were “ridiculous” and her CV was “all absolutely true”. Ms Leadsom has faced questions about her professional background in financial services, her tax arrangements and the sincerity of her support for Brexit.
