Theresa May Announces Resignation as Prime Minister effective 7 June.

Posted by DanielS on Friday, 24 May 2019 13:14.

As a Remain voter to begin with, Theresa May’s Prime Ministership looked more and more like a grand filibuster to obstruct Brexit indefinitely. And, as Allister Heath said over at the Daily Telegraph, 22 May 2019:

Theresa May at the top nearly 3 years

As prime minister, following David Cameron

6 years before that, as home secretary

Failed to win 2017 general election outright, but stayed PM

Remainvoter in the 2016 EU referendum

Brexit dominated her time at 10 Downing Street. (PA)

There may be a chance of a Tory-Brexit Party pact as some point, but zero chance the supporters of Mrs May’s deal or her allies will be spared the full force of Nigel Farage’s Party.

The reality is that nobody who believes in Brexit can possibly vote for Mrs. May’s deal. There is no longer any excuse, no longer any room for doubt. Mrs. May’s latest version is an admission that the established parties will never allow us to leave the E.U.

It is an attempt to entrench the status-quo, the symbol of a broken West Minster stuck on a doom-loop.

In its denial of democracy and its decision to put process above substance, it is also a provocation.

It tells Brexiteers that they will only get change if they elect new MP’s from new parties; many will oblige, keen to usher-in fresh, more responsive politics

UK set for new PM as Theresa May quits

BBC, 24 May 2019:

Mrs May became emotional as she concluded her announcement.

Theresa May has said she will quit as Conservative leader on 7 June, paving the way for a contest to decide a new prime minister. In an emotional statement, she said she had done her best to deliver Brexit and it was a matter of “deep regret” that she had been unable to do so.

Mrs May said she would continue to serve as PM while a Conservative leadership contest takes place.

The party said it hoped a new leader could be in place by the end of July. It means Mrs May will still be prime minister when US President Donald Trump makes his state visit to the UK at the start of June.

Mrs May announced she would step down as Tory leader on 7 June and had agreed with the chairman of Tory backbenchers that a leadership contest should begin the following week.

On Friday, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt became the latest MP to say that he would run for the party leadership, joining Boris Johnson, Esther McVey and Rory Stewart, who had already confirmed their intentions. More than a dozen others are believed to be seriously considering entering the contest.

The prime minister has faced a backlash from her MPs against her latest Brexit plan, which included concessions aimed at attracting cross-party support.

Andrea Leadsom quit as Commons leader on Wednesday saying she no longer believed the government’s approach would “deliver on the referendum result”.

Mrs May met Home Secretary Sajid Javid and Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt at Downing Street on Thursday where they are understood to have expressed their concerns about her proposed withdrawal bill.

In her statement on Friday, she said she had done “everything I can” to convince MPs to support the withdrawal deal she had negotiated with the European Union but it was now in the “best interests of the country for a new prime minister to lead that effort”. She added that, in order to deliver Brexit, her successor would have to build agreement in Parliament.

“Such a consensus can only be reached if those on all sides of the debate are willing to compromise,” she said.

Mrs May’s voice shook as she ended her speech saying: “I will shortly leave the job that it has been the honour of my life to hold. The second female prime minister, but certainly not the last.”

“I do so with no ill will, but with enormous and enduring gratitude to have had the opportunity to serve the country I love.”

Comments:

Posted by DanielS on Sat, 25 May 2019 17:56 | #

I am not one to comment at great length and depth as British politics is not my beat, so to speak….

Say what you will about Theresa May…

However, I was struck by her concern in her initial statement upon accession as PM that young White boys were being treated with disregard and left behind by Britain’s educational system…

The fact that she would recognize the category of White boys to be defended against unfair treatment is something practically unthinkable for an American president.

It showed both independence from the American way and that PC- anti-ethnonational, propositional liberalism was not necessarily an endless affliction by her means…

Posted by DanielS on Mon, 27 May 2019 04:02 | #

But yes, Theresa May’s key mistake was allowing herself to be out-lefted by Jeremy Corbyn, particularly on the housing issue… for the elderly especially.

Posted by mancinblack on Fri, 31 May 2019 22:38 | #

Over the years there’s been a number of reports about how the education system is failing white working-class boys, such as the Sutton Trust report of 2016 and the Higher Education Policy Institute report of May 2018. They are the type of thing that politicians jump on and promise to improve, if only you vote for them.

Focusing on ethnic minorities and women’s agendas ...has had a negative impact for white working-class boys

That was Angela Rayner, Labour shadow education minister, in an interview with the Spectator in May 2018. As someone once said “politician’s have learned how to talk but not how to act”, so I don’t expect changes anytime soon.

May is the only party leader I know of who seemingly failed to understand that a percentage of the electorate have to bribed, basically. Telling pensioners that she wasn’t going to take as much money from them as she had been doing really wasn’t much of a selling point, especially as a few weeks after the general election she announced the “end of austerity” anyway.

Having been impressed by GW’s recent attempt at poetry, I thought I’d have a go myself. This is off the top of my head and could do with another verse but she has wasted too much of my and everyone else’s time as it is.
Ode to Theresa May -

Theresa May the vicar’s daughter
She told lies when she didn’t oughta
Goes to church every Sunday
Back at work on the Monday

Seeing Brexit as damage limitation
She didn’t show hesitation
In compromising how the nation
Had voted for their salvation

Theresa May the vicar’s daughter
She told lies when she didn’t oughta
Goes to church every Sunday
Won’t be at work come next Monday

Okay, I know she isn’t leaving next Monday but I can’t think of anything to rhyme with 7th June.

Posted by Guessedworker on Sat, 01 Jun 2019 09:12 | #

Funny, manc.

Theresa May remains a mystery for one reason. Why did she make those initial three ringing, set-piece endorsements of a real Brexit ... including major international speeches ... and then turn 180 degrees into a deceitful and cunning, utterly determined, cloaked Remainer? I cannot see any likely scenario to explain that. Yes, there was a coup based in the Cabinet Office and the Treasury. Yes, it’s aim was to drive the country into a customs arrangement with Brussels, no doubt both to place a limit on the Brexit process and as preparation for applying to re-join the “club”. That became very clear later with Robbins’ bar talk in Brussels, overheard and reported by a BBC journalist, and with Hammond’s leaked conference call to eleven corporate CEOs. But it doesn’t explain why this tragic figure of May, who demonstrated such immense stubborness and determination to stay in office and “deliver Brexit”, should simply fold and trash everything she had said and done prior to May last year.

I guess we will have to wait for the inevitable little flood of political memoirs before we are told.

Posted by mancinblack on Sat, 01 Jun 2019 12:49 | #

Yes, May’s behaviour was certainly strange, GW. Perhaps she became afflicted with ‘cliffedge delusion’ (an anxiety driven condition) after being repeatedly told by all and sundry that leaving without a deal was lemming-like ?

We will probably have to wait until Ken Clarke writes his deathbed confessions of a smug, suede shoe’d shuffler for the truth. Shouldn’t be long, he turns 79 next month.