Exit backer Gove seeks to lead U.K.

Former mayor out, home secretary in

LONDON -- Predictions about the next prime minister of Britain were overturned Thursday as former London Mayor Boris Johnson said he would not run after his ally in the campaign to leave the European Union, Michael Gove, announced his candidacy.

Gove had once ruled himself out for the job. His about-face Thursday wrecked Johnson's prospects and enhanced those of Theresa May, the home secretary, who had backed the "Remain" campaign but with little enthusiasm.

With Johnson out, the prospect of a race between May, 59, and Gove, 48, the justice secretary, also indicated that the next prime minister would not seek to keep Britain in the duty-free, single market of the European Union if the price is no restriction on immigration from the bloc.

The sense that Johnson might try to reach a softer deal with EU officials in Brussels, as well as his unwillingness to promise key jobs to Gove and other leaders of the campaign to exit the EU, helped doom his candidacy, legislators said.

Michael Heseltine, a Conservative Party politician since the government of Margaret Thatcher, lit into Johnson in an interview with the BBC, saying Johnson's withdrawal and his role in the campaign to remove Britain from the EU created a "profound sense of dismay and, frankly, contempt" in the party.

"He's ripped the party apart," Heseltine said. "He's like a general that led his army to the sound of the guns and at the sight of the battlefield abandoned the field. ... He must live with the shame of what he's done."

Gove said Thursday that he had "come, reluctantly, to the conclusion that Boris cannot provide the leadership or build the team for the task ahead."

May supported staying in the EU but was a relatively quiet voice in that debate and made no enemies while campaigning to "Remain." She is considered a candidate of continuity who is more conservative than Prime Minister David Cameron, who announced his resignation the day after the vote to leave the bloc.

The chairman of May's campaign is a "Leave" supporter, Chris Grayling, the leader of the House of Commons.

On Thursday, May ruled out a second referendum or any effort to rejoin the EU, emphasizing that there must be better control of immigration.

"Brexit means Brexit," she said, using a term commonly used to refer to the British exit.

"The campaign was fought, the vote was held, turnout was high and the public gave their verdict," she said. "There must be no attempts to remain inside the EU, no attempts to rejoin it through the back door and no second referendum."

She said negotiations with Brussels would take years and would not start before the end of the year, despite impatience among European leaders.

While May has grown in popularity in the race to succeed Cameron, she is vulnerable to accusations that in her years as home secretary, she failed to reduce net immigration to Britain.

Johnson, in his speech, made reference to Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and spoke of "a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune." It is not a time to "fight against the tide of history, but to take that tide at the flood and sail on to fortune," Johnson said -- a reference to a line spoken by Brutus, the Roman leader's ally turned assassin.

Others drew a more contemporary parallel.

"It makes House of Cards look like Teletubbies," Conservative lawmaker Nigel Evans told the BBC.

Johnson was silent about which candidate he might now support.

Gove, who was a close friend of Cameron before backing the British exit, appears to have been encouraged to run by Cameron aides who vowed privately to try to block the ascension of Johnson, regarded as more interested in the game of politics than in the substance.

It had been evident in the days since the referendum that Johnson and Gove had no agreed-upon plan for what to do if they won and that they have disagreements about how to approach the future.

Even Thursday morning, Gove was vague about his aims should he become prime minister. He said his "plan for the United Kingdom, which I hope can provide unity and change," would be unveiled "in the coming days."

In her speech Thursday morning, May sought to paint herself as a serious politician, in contrast to Johnson, who had not yet announced that he was dropping out of the race.

"I'm not a showy politician. I don't tour the television studios. I don't gossip over lunch. I don't drink in Parliament's bars. I don't wear my heart on my sleeve. I just get on with the job in front of me," she said.

The daughter of a vicar, she portrayed herself as a candidate for ordinary voters.

"If you're from an ordinary working-class family, life is just much harder than many people in politics realize," she said. "You have a job, but you often don't have job security."

"Frankly, not everybody in Westminster understands that," she said, referring to Parliament and the government.

If selected by the Conservatives, she would be the second woman to become Britain's prime minister, after Thatcher.

Apart from Gove and May, contenders for the Conservative leadership are Work and Pensions Secretary Stephen Crabb, Energy Minister Andrea Leadsom and former Defense Secretary Liam Fox.

The five candidates will be winnowed down to two by successive votes by Conservative Party members of Parliament, beginning Tuesday. One of those two will then be chosen as the next leader by the 150,000 or so registered members of the party, with an outcome to be announced Sept. 9.

Because the party still holds a majority in Parliament, the victor will become prime minister. Some political observers speculate, however, that the new prime minister might call a general election as early as October. Because the British exit is certain to be the major election issue, that would give voters a chance either to ratify the vote by a second poll, or overturn it by electing a prime minister who opposes the exit.

There were signs of intraparty scuffling Wednesday when an email to Gove from his wife, Sarah Vine, a journalist, was leaked. In it, she urged her husband to approach a commitment to Johnson with skepticism, and to lock down any commitments beforehand, especially on controls over immigration. She encouraged Gove to have "leverage" in his dealings with Johnson, claiming that without Gove's support, the Conservative Party membership would not have "the necessary reassurance to back Boris" in the leadership vote.

Less than two weeks ago, just days before the June 23 referendum, Gove was adamant that he did not have the desire or the talent to become prime minister. Praising Cameron "as an exceptional person with exceptional talents," Gove told The Daily Telegraph, "I don't think I have got that exceptional level of ability required for the job."

Four years ago, Gove told the BBC, "I could not be prime minister, I'm not equipped to be prime minister, I don't want to be prime minister."

Mark Field, a legislator who was planning to back Johnson, said, "At least it shows that it's not just the Labor Party that is capable of being a complete shambles."

The opposition Labor Party is also in the midst of a leadership struggle.

The incumbent, Jeremy Corbyn, overwhelmingly lost a no-confidence vote among Labor's members of Parliament, but he has said he will not resign. He faces a challenge by Angela Eagle, the former Labor spokesman for business.

If both May and Eagle emerge victorious, women would lead Britain and Scotland. Women would head both main British political parties as well as all three in Scotland and one in Wales.

Cameron has said he will not formally trigger Britain's exit and will leave that task to his successor. Once the next leader invokes Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, the never-before-used mechanism by which EU members can leave the bloc, the next prime minister will have two years to negotiate a new deal with the 27 remaining members.

Europe signaled Wednesday that it will drive a hard bargain, refusing to budge on likely British demands that the bloc relax its rules allowing freedom of movement for workers across national borders. European leaders say that if Britain wants access to the single market, it will have to accept free movement.

Information for this article was contributed by Steven Erlanger and Stephen Castle of The New York Times; by Jill Lawless, Gregory Katz and Raphael Satter of The Associated Press; by Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times; and by Griff Witte of The Washington Post.

A Section on 07/01/2016

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