Theresa May resigns: Boris Johnson threatens no-deal Brexit as prominent Conservatives announce bids to replace PM
MPs pay tribute to ‘dignified’ prime minister as leadership race intensifies
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Your support makes all the difference.Theresa May announced her resignation in an emotional speech on Friday, in which she said she would stand down as Conservative party leader on 7 June.
Ms May said she had “done my best” in a speech from Downing Street, before the Tory party announced a new prime minister would be in No.10 by 31 July.
Watched by husband Philip, Ms May’s voice cracked as she said it had been “the honour of my life” to serve as PM and she felt “enormous and enduring gratitude to have had the opportunity to serve the country I love”.
In an apparent warning to the Conservative Party not to pursue a no-deal Brexit after she goes, Ms May said her successor will need to pursue compromise to find a way of delivering the result of the 2016 referendum and taking the UK out of the EU in a way that protects jobs, security and the Union.
But Tory leadership contenders are now ramping up their efforts to replace her, ahead of the official start of the contest.
Boris Johnson emerged as the bookmakers’ favourite to succeed Ms May, as Jeremy Hunt and Sir Graham Brady announced they would stand.
Mr Johnson said the prime minister had been “patient and stoical” in her failed attempt to solve the Brexit crisis.
“The job of our next leader in the UK, he or she, is to get out of the EU properly and put Brexit to bed,” Mr Johnson said.
“We will leave the EU on 31 October, deal or no deal,” the former foreign secretary said, adding a second referendum on EU membership would be a “very bad idea”.
Conservative MPs also paid tribute to the dignified manner in which Theresa May announced her departure.
“Delivering Brexit was always going to be a huge task,” said Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt.
“But one she met every day with courage and resolve...a true public servant.”
Additional reporting by agencies
If you would like to see how the day’s news from Westminster unfolded, please see what was our live coverage below:
Our political correspondent Lizzie Buchan has more on Jeremy Hunt’s bid to become leader.
Steve Bannon and George Galloway reportedly hugged each other after hearing about May’s resignation. The unlikely pair were speaking together at an event in Kazakhstan.
Here’s Tom Embury-Dennis with the details.
The BBC’s Europe editor Katya Adler says EU leaders have made the “assumption” that May's successor might ask for more time, whether to hold a general election or to even make an effort to renegotiate the Brexit deal.
Today’s resignation announcement has apparently got EU chiefs immediately thinking about whether more time could be offered beyond the 31 October deadline.
“Germany would prefer to give the UK more time, if not to change its mind about Brexit, then at least to ensure an “orderly exit” – ie Brexit with a deal – to avoid the economic and political fallout of no deal at all,” tweeted Adler.
Remember when Boris Johnson described Africa as “that country”? It was only one of many gaffes made by the Tory leadership frontrunner.
Jon Sharman looks at a dozen of Johnson’s most infamous errors.
Brexiteer Tory MP Mark Francois has been repeating a soundbite he came up with earlier today that the “Dancing Queen has met her Waterloo”.
Speaking to the Press Association, the leading ERG member: “She lost the confidence of the voluntary members in the party when she started to negotiate with Jeremy Corbyn - our sworn ideological enemy.
“She’s tried her best but unfortunately it hasn’t worked. At the end of the day the tragedy of it is that it's self-inflicted. She doesn’t listen very well to advice.
“Her deal was voted down very clearly three times, and then to try and bring it back, effectively for a fourth time, was pretty daft.
“It’s because she didn’t listen to her party or her colleagues that in the end the Dancing Queen has met her Waterloo.”
May jigged to the stage at the Tory party conference last October.
Evening Standard editor George Osborne has tweeted his newspaper’s latest front page. An early editorial described Theresa May as “one of the shortest serving and least successful prime ministers in Britain’s history”.
Speaking in Brussels, the EU’s Brexit chief negotiator Michel Barnier said: "I just want to express my full respect for Theresa May and for her determination in working towards an orderly withdrawal of the United Kingdom. And on our side we would work exactly in that direction in the next few weeks and months.
When asked if a new prime minister could change things, he said: “What could happen now, let me just clearly say here in Brussels that it is for the UK to decide. Nobody else.”
European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker “followed Prime Minister May’s announcement this morning without personal joy”, his spokeswoman said earlier today.
Beyond his statement this morning, former PM David Cameron has had more to say on Theresa May’s resignation. “I know what it feels like when you come to realise that your leadership time has finished … it’s extremely difficult and painful.”
More than two thirds of people believe Theresa May was right to announce her intention to resign, a snap YouGov poll has suggested.
The survey of more than 2,200 adults on Friday found 71 per cent of Tory voters backed her decision, while 67 per cent of the public believed she made the right choice.
Just 16 per cent of those asked said she had made the wrong move in standing down.
Meanwhile, a different YouGov poll of more than 1,500 adults found that Boris Johnson was both the most and least popular Tory candidate to replace Mrs May.
More than a quarter of those questioned – 28 per cent – said he would make a good PM, while 54 per cent said he would be a bad choice.
Boris Johnson has not yet formally announced his candidacy to become the next PM, only stating that “of course” he would stand for the Tory leadership while appearing at a conference in Switzerland.
Here’s all he had to say on Brexit and the prospect of a no deal exit from the EU.
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