May ‘set to announce that she’ll go in June’
Pressure on UK’s PM amid Brexit deal shambles
THERESA May is today expected to clear the way for Britain to have a new prime minister by the summer.
Allies of the embattled PM said that – barring a lastminute change of heart – she will announce plans this morning to step aside as Conservative Party leader next month.
Mrs May will begin the day with a fateful meeting with the Tories’ backbench shop steward Graham Brady to discuss the exact timetable for her departure.
She is then expected to address the people of Britain from Downing Street to explain why she is leaving ‘the job I love’ before she has realised her ambition of leading the country out of the EU.
Mrs May is expected to seek to delay the start of the Tory leadership race until the week beginning June 10, in order to allow her to host US President Donald Trump’s state visit at the start of the month without the indignity of her MPs voting on her successor at the same time.
But she will stay on as prime minister while the Tory leadership contest takes place, allowing a smooth transition to a new leader before the summer recess. Allies suggested yesterday that she was due to discuss final details of her departure with her husband Philip last night, before publicly making her intentions clear today.
This morning’s expected move will trigger what looks certain to be a divisive Tory leadership race, which could see Boris Johnson finally achieve his dream of power.
Mrs May was yesterday involved in a ‘frank’ discussion with her home secretary Sajid Javid, while foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt made clear he did not believe her Withdrawal Agreement Bill could get through the Commons.
The WAB had been due to be published today but that has been delayed in a sign of the chaos at the top of the British government.
MPs were told that Mrs May’s government intends to publish the Bill in the week beginning June 3. Downing Street had previously insisted the WAB would go before MPs for a vote that week, but it was not announced when the British government set out the forthcoming Commons agenda yesterday.
The scale of cabinet concern over the legislation – which led to Andrea Leadsom’s resignation on Wednesday night – was made clear by two of Mrs May’s most senior ministers.
Mr Hunt is understood to have told her to pull the WAB, saying it was clear it would not pass.
It was a ‘step too far’ to ask Tory MPs to vote for it under those circumstances, he told the prime minister.
Mr Javid had a ‘frank discussion’ with Mrs May about the plan, making it clear he does not believe the UK government should be ‘paving the way’ for a second referendum.
He is understood to be pleased with the delay to the publication of the WAB and neither minister is expected to follow Mrs Leadsom out of the Cabinet.
Mrs May appointed Mel Stride, a Remainer, as Commons leader following Mrs Leadsom’s departure.
A meeting today with with Graham Brady – chairman of the 1922 Committee who are pushing for Mrs May’s departure and are against her Brexit deal – is expected to seal her fate. A 1922 Committee source said they expected Mrs May would stay until June 10, but warned there would be ‘much greater pressure’ for her to go immediately if she introduces the WAB.
‘Hopefully what will happen is she will stand down as Tory leader, I think, on or before June 10, and she will hopefully remain as caretaker prime minister until such time as a new Tory leader is elected,’ they said. ‘My feeling is that she will stay until June 10.’
The source said a new leader would ideally be in place by the end of the summer to get a Brexit deal through parliament before October 31.
Mrs May has previously agreed to set out the timetable for the contest to replace her after a vote on her latest Brexit deal, which had been expected on June 7.
But that deadline appears to have been brought forward with the announcement she will meet Mr Brady today after the European elections, in which the Tories are widely expected to be hammered by Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party.
‘My feeling is she will stay till June 10’