U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May Tearfully Announces Resignation
U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May announced on Friday that she would resign from her position as leader of the Conservative Party on June 7. The embattled leader has been tasked with negotiating Brexit, the country’s departure from the European Union, since 2016—and let’s just say things haven’t been going smoothly.
“I tried three times,” she said in a speech in front of 10 Downing Street. May was elected on the promise of delivering Brexit, but the latest deal she negotiated with the E.U. in Brussels was criticized across the political spectrum. But criticism from her own party is what mounted the pressure for her to step down. It was revealed on Tuesday that she had offered the House of Commons a second referendum vote on Brexit, a concession to the opposition that the leadership of the 1922 Committee, which represents the interests of rank-and-file Conservative Party members, would not brook. They threatened to change party rules to allow a second vote of no-confidence regarding May’s role, despite her surviving one last year that gave her immunity for one year.
At the lectern, May ended her speech by saying, "I will shortly leave the job that it has been the honor 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,” she said, at which point she (it was reported by many) “burst into tears,” but it was really more like she audibly choked up as she turned around and went back into Downing Street.
Former London mayor Boris Johnson is one of the rumored contenders to replace May as the head of the Conservative Party; both hard-line Brexiteers and Remainers alike are worried about what May’s successor will do with the, frankly, epic dumpster—or bin—fire that is Brexit. Things were so tense this morning that even Larry the Cat, 10 Downing Street’s “chief mouser” was removed from outside the property shortly before May spoke, presumably so that he wouldn’t have to watch.
Originally Appeared on Vogue
