New U.K. leader 2nd female premier

Cameron to step aside Wednesday; May prepares for tough job ahead

Britain’s Theresa May is applauded Monday by Conservative Party members of Parliament outside the Houses of Parliament in London.
Britain’s Theresa May is applauded Monday by Conservative Party members of Parliament outside the Houses of Parliament in London.

LONDON -- Britain is set to get a new prime minister within two days, after a tumultuous two weeks that saw several candidates felled by political intrigue.

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AP

British Prime Minister David Cameron walks out of No.10 Downing Street to make an announcement Monday in London after Theresa May secured her place as the United Kingdom’s second female premier. Cameron said he will step down on Wednesday.

photo

AP

In this image from TV, Andrea Leadsom, one of two candidates running to lead the Conservative Party, makes her announcement to withdraw from the race Monday in London. Leadsom says she has concluded she does not have “sufficient support” to win.

Prime Minister David Cameron said Monday that he will step down in two days in favor of Theresa May, a senior member of his Cabinet, who will become Britain's second female leader.

Cameron announced his resignation last month because he backed the losing side in a referendum for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union. So did May -- but infighting, bad timing and cold feet among leaders of the victorious "Leave" campaign mean that she will have the task of leading a divided country out of the EU.

The latest chapter in the political turmoil spawned by the EU vote moved with breathtaking speed.

On Monday morning, there were two candidates to lead the governing Conservative Party. At noon, Andrea Leadsom stepped down, making May leader-in-waiting. By late afternoon, Cameron had announced that May would be moving into 10 Downing St. within 48 hours.

"We will have a new prime minister in that building behind me by Wednesday evening," Cameron said in a brief statement outside the leader's official London residence.

The turn of events meant that May would become prime minister without a general election and without completing the campaign she and Leadsom had been waging for the endorsement of the Conservative Party's rank-and-file members.

May had earlier said she believed it was important that the party have a choice in its new leader and that she not take power through "a coronation."

Cameron, who has governed since May 2010, said he would offer his resignation to Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace on Wednesday after attending a final session of Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Commons. The monarch will then invite May -- as leader of a party with a majority in Parliament -- to lead a new government.

Speaking outside Parliament surrounded by Conservative colleagues, May said she was "honored and humbled" to have been chosen the party's new leader.

May campaigned to remain in the EU, but sought to reassure those who voted "leave" that she would respect their decision. She said there would be no attempt to avoid a British exit from the bloc.

"Brexit means Brexit, and we're going to make a success of it," she said, promising to deliver "a strong, new positive vision for the future of our country."

Race for premier

May's victory came when Leadsom, the energy minister, stepped down from the Conservative leadership race after a weekend furor over comments in which she appeared to say being a mother gave her an advantage over May, who has no children.

Only a week after she announced she was running, Leadsom said she had concluded she lacked "sufficient support" among legislators to be leader. She said "the interests of our country are best served by the immediate appointment of a strong and well-supported prime minister."

Before her announcement, Leadsom apologized to May, telling The Daily Telegraph newspaper that she believed having children has "no bearing on the ability to be PM."

Leadsom's rivals said both her comments on motherhood and her subsequent flip-flopping showed she lacked the experience under pressure required to be prime minister. Her allies accused May supporters of trying to undermine Leadsom.

Leadsom also said Monday that she had concluded that "a nine-week leadership campaign at such a critical moment for our country is highly undesirable."

"Business needs certainty," she said.

Cameron's resignation announcement the day after the June 23 referendum triggered the Tory leadership race. The most prominent contenders to replace him -- including "leave" campaign leaders Boris Johnson and Michael Gove -- withdrew or were eliminated from contention one by one amid allegations of treachery and scheming.

Conservative lawmakers narrowed the field from five contenders to Leadsom and May. Some 150,000 party members were due to choose between them in the coming weeks, with the result to be announced in September.

But with Leadsom's withdrawal, the party announced that May would be the new leader "with immediate effect."

May, 59, is one of the most experienced ministers in Cameron's Cabinet, serving for six years in the notoriously difficult job of home secretary, akin to the interior minister's post in other countries. She has a reputation for unflashy competence and for prevailing over her rivals. Former Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke was caught on microphone last week telling a colleague, "Theresa's a bloody difficult woman -- but you and I worked for Margaret Thatcher."

The comparison with Thatcher, the "Iron Lady" who governed from 1979 to 1990 and refashioned Britain in line with her free-market ideology, appeals to many Tories.

But unlike Thatcher, May is seen as a relative political moderate, and on Monday she promised to address inequality, give workers greater representation on corporate boards and limit tax cuts.

In a speech, May outlined an economic agenda unlike that of Thatcher, calling for new mechanisms to curb executive pay and warning big multinational companies that they must pay their share of taxes.

May has also been compared to Angela Merkel, the chancellor of Germany who, like May, is the daughter of a clergyman and is known for her no-nonsense, methodical and pragmatic approach.

They both inhabit the center-right of European politics but are also known for a strong pragmatic streak.

Both are also considered tough negotiators -- skills they'll be putting to use against one another as May seeks a divorce deal with her soon-to-be-former EU counterparts.

Senior Conservatives quickly rallied around the new leader. Gove, the justice secretary, said May "has my full support as our next prime minister," while Johnson, the former London mayor, said she would "provide the authority and the leadership necessary to unite the Conservative Party and take the country forward."

Tough times ahead

May is set to take over at a time of immense upheaval for Britain. The nation must not only negotiate its withdrawal from the EU, a process fraught with economic and political risks, but it must also hold itself together amid a renewed clamor from Scotland for independence. Early signs are that Britain's economy has already taken a substantial hit from the exit vote.

May will be under immediate pressure to launch two years of formal exit talks with the EU by triggering Article 50 of the bloc's constitution.

That effectively sets a two-year deadline for a deal to be struck. She has suggested that she intends to wait until her government has settled on its negotiating stance before invoking the article despite pressure from Europe's leaders to act more quickly.

May faces the challenge of negotiating a new relationship with the EU that can satisfy exit-supporting Britons, disappointed "remain" voters and the 27 remaining members of the bloc. She will have to balance access to the EU's single market, which the economy has come to rely on, with immigration controls that the "leave" campaign promised.

"She is in a position of leading a country which wants to have its cake and eat it -- which wants to leave the EU but yet have access to the single market without free movement of people," said Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary, University of London. "The idea that she is going to be able to satisfy everybody I think is far-fetched. That reckoning is two years or so down the line, but it is a reckoning that will eventually come."

May has used Clarke's comment to suggest that her negotiating stance with European officials would be as tough as that of Thatcher, who famously went into battle on the Continent, particularly over British financial contributions to the bloc.

"Ken Clarke might have found me to be a 'bloody difficult woman.' The next person to find that out will be Jean-Claude Juncker," she told fellow Conservative lawmakers, referring to the president of the European Commission, the bloc's executive, ITV reported.

She also faces calls to seek a mandate from voters well before the next scheduled national election in 2020, although there is no legal requirement for her to do so.

Oliver Daddow, senior lecturer in politics at Nottingham Trent University, said May would be well advised to call a snap election while Labour is in disarray.

"She'd have to really mess it up not to win," he said.

The referendum has also sparked a leadership struggle in the main opposition Labour party.

Labour lawmaker Angela Eagle launched an attempt to unseat party leader Jeremy Corbyn, a staunchly uncharismatic socialist who has a strong base of support among Labour members but little backing from the party's 229 lawmakers.

Labour legislators have passed a no-confidence motion in Corbyn, and many of his top team in Parliament resigned from their jobs to protest his leadership. He is refusing to resign and says he can win a leadership battle, which would be decided by a vote of party members.

Nevertheless, opposition politicians called for a general election and questioned May's democratic mandate, since she will assume the job on the basis of an internal transfer of power within the governing party. So far, May has rejected the notion of a quick general election.

"Tories now have no mandate," tweeted Tim Farron, leader of the centrist Liberal Democrats, in a call for new elections. "Britain deserves better than this."

Information for this article was contributed by Jill Lawless and Danica Kirka of The Associated Press, by Stephen Castle of The New York Times, and by Griff Witte and Karla Adam of The Washington Post.

A Section on 07/12/2016

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