U.K.’s Theresa May Lays Out Her Plans For Resignation As UK Prime Minister

* Johnson confirms he will run to replace her as
Conservative leader

Theresa May has started the countdown to her departure as prime
minister, telling senior Conservative MPs she will next month set
out a timetable for her resignation and the election of a new party
leader.

Mrs May has been under immense pressure to quit and on Thursday
she finally bowed to the inevitable, agreeing that she would
confirm details of her departure in early June, regardless of
whether she secures her Brexit deal.

Hours before Mrs May’s decision, former foreign secretary Boris
Johnson confirmed that he would run for the Conservative party
leadership; a contest is now expected to take place in the coming
months with a “coronation” of the new leader at the autumn party
conference.

Mrs May told Tory grandees on the backbench 1922 committee in a
meeting lasting over an hour that she was focused on delivering
Brexit and that she was determined to win a crunch vote on the
withdrawal agreement bill in the week starting June 3.

But crucially Mrs May told the 1922 executive that whatever
happens in that vote — most MPs expect the deal to be rejected for
a fourth time — she would immediately set out a timetable for her
departure.

A statement issued by Graham Brady, chair of the 1922 committee,
on behalf of the executive and Mrs May, said the prime minister was
“devoting her efforts” to securing the crucial second reading of
the Brexit bill.

But he added: “We have agreed that she and I will meet following
the second reading of the bill to agree a timetable for the
election of a new leader of the Conservative and Unionist
party.”

The outline of the final weeks of Mrs May’s premiership has now
become clearer. Tory sources confirmed that if Mrs May loses the
vote on the week of June 3, she would announce her resignation and
instigate a leadership contest.

If she wins a second reading for the withdrawal agreement bill —
which will depend on Labour help — Mrs May would try to take the
contentious legislation through the Commons with a view to getting
it on to the statute book by the end of July.

Mrs May has said she would resign once Brexit legislation was
enacted, so the Conservative party now knows that it will be
looking for a new leader, and a new prime minister for Britain, in
the coming months.

The agreement between Mrs May and Sir Graham is intended to
remove the prospect of MPs having to prise the prime minister out
of Downing Street, possibly by changing party rules to allow a vote
of no confidence in her.

It should also head off the humiliation awaiting the prime
minister on June 15, when about 800 activists who sit on the
party’s national convention were due to hold a non-binding but
unprecedented no confidence vote in her.

Mr Johnson confirmed what MPs at Westminster have known for a
long time when he said that he would make his second run for the
Tory leadership.

Asked at a business event in Manchester if he would be a
candidate, Mr Johnson replied: “Of course I’m going to go for
it.”

Mr Johnson previously ran for the Tory leadership in 2016, but
his campaign self-destructed amid claims that he was not focused on
the job in hand.

Environment secretary Michael Gove, who had been running the
Johnson campaign, announced his own candidacy on the day his friend
was supposed to formally launch his own bid.

If Mrs May does resign before the Commons summer break, starting
in July, a leadership contest could put a new leader in place in
time for the Tory conference in Manchester starting on September
29.

Financial Times

Subscribe ToNairalaw News!