The warmth in the House of Commons culminated in loud applause and a standing ovation from his Conservative colleagues for Cameron, 49, who resigned after voters rejected his advice and made a decision to leave the European Union.
Advertisement
After her own visit to the palace to be formally entrusted with the job by the monarch, May will then enter Number 10 Downing Street as prime minister in the afternoon.
The moment was bittersweet.
In her speech, Mrs May said: “It doesn’t matter to me whether you’re Amazon, Google or Starbucks, you have a duty to put something back, you have a debt to your fellow citizens, you have a responsibility to pay your taxes”.
Osborne and May cited Cameron’s achievements including legalizing same-sex marriage, an overhaul of schools and an increased minimum wage.
British politics can be brutal – the moving vans were pulling up to 10 Downing St. the next day.
Green MP Caroline Lucas said she too felt an election was needed.
Cameron will face MPs in parliament for a final time on Wednesday in the weekly prime minister’s questions session, before meeting Queen Elizabeth II to tender his resignation.
Cameron resigned after Britons voted – against his advice – to leave the EU.
The Guardian newspaper summed up the situation in an editorial last Wednesday: It is now brutally clear that there is not a plan no plan for how and when Britain leaves, no plan for future relations with Europe, and no plan at all for how political assent might be secured for any of the imperfect political options on offer. That is as true for May as it was for the defunct pro-Brexit leadership.
“We get ourselves ready for the negotiation; we decide what kind of relationship we want to negotiate, and then we move ahead and trigger Article 50”, he told Britain’s Sky News. “We’ll do it right, we’ll do it in a proper way, we’ll do it when we’re ready”.
May has said that she plans to form a different government department which will lead the process of Britain’s exit from European Union and she plans to appoint a “Leave” campaigner to head it.
May also has said she will appoint a minister specifically to oversee negotiations with the EU.
“Theresa May’s virtual “coronation” as prime minister has delivered a boost to the pound as the clouds of uncertainty following the Brexit vote start to disperse”, said market analyst Neil Wilson at ETX Capital, a financial trading company in London.
She dismissed calls for an early general election – the next one is not due until 2020 – saying the Conservatives should use the next four years to build support.
May campaigned, albeit it quietly, with Cameron for Britain to stay in the European Union and she will have to convince eurosceptics within her party and the country at large that she has no intention of ducking out of implementing the June 23 vote to quit the bloc.
Leader Jeremy Corbyn has lost the support of most Labour members of Parliament and is facing a challenge from legislator Angela Eagle, in a contest with all the brutality but none of the speed of the Conservative succession.
Corbyn is fighting to retain his position after a dramatic loss of support among his party’s members of Parliament.
As Home Secretary, May announced plans for a temporary cap on United Kingdom visas for non-EU migrants in 2010, which raised concerns about the country’s economy.
The committee decided by a vote of 18-14 that Corbyn would be on the ballot automatically. May’s final opponent in the race for the leadership of the Conservative Party.
However, he said that he would stay in office until October, to give the party time to choose a new leader. But Tony Travers of the London School of Economics said May would likely not rush to trigger Article 50 of the European Union constitution, which starts a two-year countdown to a final exit. The party’s contest lasted far shorter than expected, however.
Advertisement
The meeting was described as “emotional” by Culture Secretary John Whittingdale who said “there was a touch of sadness” to the Prime Minister and his ministers.
