Former British prime minister Theresa May will not stand for re-election, she said on Friday, ending a 27-year career in parliament marked by a tumultuous spell leading the country as it tore itself apart over Brexit.
Ms May (67) became the latest in a long line of Conservative party politicians to signal their departure from parliament at an election later this year. Polls show the governing party is expected to lose power to Labour.
Ms May became prime minister in 2016 after then-leader David Cameron resigned in the wake of Britain’s shock vote to leave the European Union. She was selected by her Conservative party peers to implement the decision, for which her predecessor had left no blueprint.
But she quit three years later having been unable to deliver Brexit on schedule or find a way to get parliament to approve her exit plan, handing the reins to Boris Johnson, who galvanised much of the nation around his vision for Britain’s departure.
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Since leaving office she has remained a member of parliament for her constituency in southeast England, but she said on Friday her focus on trying to combat modern slavery and human trafficking was taking up an increasing amount of time.
“Because of this, after much careful thought and consideration, I have realised that, looking ahead, I would no longer be able to do my job as an MP in the way I believe is right and my constituents deserve,” she told her local newspaper, the Maidenhead Advertiser.
Prime minister Rishi Sunak paid tribute to Ms May, describing her as fiercely loyal and a relentless campaigner. He said she defined what it meant to be a public servant.
Ms May’s tenure was dominated by Brexit, overseeing one of the most disorderly periods in recent British political history as she grappled to hold together a party, and a country, that was deeply divided over what the EU withdrawal meant for the future.
After inheriting a small parliamentary majority, she in 2017 sought to capitalise on an initial wave of popularity by calling a snap election to win a bigger mandate.
But the plan backfired, with the Conservatives losing their overall majority and becoming reliant on the support of the Democratic Unionist Party to stay in power – making her efforts to push her Brexit plans through parliament even harder.
Facing a string of party rebellions and a parliamentary stalemate that tested the nation’s constitution to its limits, she resigned as prime minister in 2019, emotionally describing the role as having been the “honour of my life to hold”. – Reuters
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