Brexiteers look to replace tearful May

UK Prime Minister Theresa May has resigned in tears after a three-year premiership during which she achieved almost nothing. 

She will step down as Conservative Party leader on June 7 with bungling pro-Brexiteer Boris Johnson being tipped as the current frontrunner to replace her.

An emotional May said she had “done everything” she could to push Brexit through the House of Commons and she said it was with “deep regret” that she failed.

“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,” May said, before fleeing the podium as she broke down in tears.

It was a shambolic end to an appalling premiership which has left the country considerably weaker than it was than when she took over in the wake of the divisive 2016 referendum. 

The BBC interviewed numerous pro-Brexit Conservative MPs who all called for a clean break with the rest of the European Union without once being challenged by the interviewers about the probable dire consequences of their “no-deal” approach.

The consensus appears to be that Johnson leads the field as by far the most popular candidate with the increasingly aged and right-wing Tory membership. 

However, the frontrunner often fails to win the Conservative leadership with the party regularly opting for the outsider, like Margaret Thatcher in 1975, John Major in 1990 and David Cameron in 2005. 

Johnson has somehow managed to become popularly known as “Boris”. Most politicians would like to be referred to by their first name, implying they were a personal friend, and somehow the media has almost universally complied in Johnson’s case. 

It remains to be seen if Johnson could control a working majority within the Commons as he is less respected by his parliamentary party colleagues than he is with the wider membership, who are heavily pro-Brexit.

A Johnson premiership would probably be forced to call an early general election and possibly de-select several pro-remain Conservative MPs before he could forge a majority to push through his apparent vision for a hard Brexit. 

May’s departure is doubtless informed by the prospect of Nigel Farage’s new Brexit Party prospering in the European election yesterday (Thursday). 

The results will be announced on Monday with the pro-remain vote split between the Liberal Democrats, Greens and Change UK in England along with nationalist parties in Scotland and Wales. 

 

Theresa May will go down as one of the worst British prime ministers. Picture credit: Eurasia Times