She ended her speech with a promise: “Together, we will build a better Britain”.
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May faced immediate pressure from European Union leaders to serve formal notice of Britain’s withdrawal and set the clock ticking on a two-year countdown to its final departure.
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker called on May to swiftly engage in divorce talks with the European Union.
After the meeting, which is thought to have lasted around 30 minutes, the former Prime Minister left by another entrance as he returned to a relatively normal life.
“I too have a mandate, and that mandate is to respect the wishes of the people in Scotland and now to find a way to keep Scotland in the European Union”, she said.
She said: “I know you’re working around the clock, I know you’re doing your best and I know sometimes it can be a struggle”.
In a speech on Monday, she said she was “honored and humbled” to be chosen as the next PM and that her campaign had always been about the need for strong leadership in “what is sure to be hard and uncertain economic and political times”.
Meanwhile, in her first address as Prime Minister, May said that the mission of her government is to forge a positive role for United Kingdom in the world as it leaves the European Union.
Trying to reclaim his legacy from Brexit, Cameron said his government had cut the deficit, overseen economic growth and legalized same-sex marriage.
“As I once said, I was the future once”, Cameron noted, as his wife Samantha and three children watched from the public gallery.
The blond, Latin-speaking Johnson – a leader of the campaign for a British exit, or Brexit – had aspired to be prime minister himself before his bid failed because of party infighting.
May campaigned as a safe pair of hands who will help bridge Conservative Party divisions exposed by the Brexit referendum and restore investor confidence. He gambled, and he lost.
The removal vans were already parked outside Downing Street by the time he left the House of Commons with others waiting to move Mrs May in.
A tough-talking home secretary for the past six years, May is something of an unknown quantity internationally, although she has received ringing endorsements from party colleagues and a normally sceptical British tabloid press.
The daughter of a Church of England vicar, May is a cricket fan with a sober demeanour and lists her hobbies as cooking and walking.
She is well-liked in and around Maidenhead, the well-to-do commuter town west of London she has represented in parliament since 1997.
She said she would govern for all “not just the privileged few”.
Women are expected to secure several top jobs in May’s cabinet, including current energy minister Amber Rudd and worldwide development minister Justine Greening.
Like Mr Cameron, Mrs May campaigned to remain in the European Union but has said she will respect the will of the people, as expressed in 23 June’s referendum, saying: “Brexit means Brexit”.
Financial markets, which had been extremely volatile since the referendum, reacted positively to news on Monday that May would become prime minister earlier than expected.
However, his running mate Michael Gove chose to stand for the job himself and Johnson swiftly pulled out in a shock statement which had been expected to announce his candidacy.
“The UK finally has a new prime minister.Goodbye Mr. Cameron”.
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But the decision to name Johnson, the eccentric former London mayor, to the high-profile post of representing Britain to the rest of the world is likely to cause controversy.
