Britain
will have its first female prime minister since Margaret Thatcher after
Theresa May and Andrea Leadsom made the shortlist on July 7 to be the
leader who will guide the country out of the EU.
“Who’ll be the
new Maggie?” asked the front page of the Daily Mail newspaper after
cabinet veteran May won 199 votes from the 329 ruling Conservative
lawmakers who took part in the ballot for next party leader and prime
minister.
Junior energy minister Leadsom, who was only elected to
parliament in 2010 and is a virtual unknown to the wider British
public, got 84 votes.
The new prime minister will be announced on
Sept. 9 and will immediately have the task of extricating Britain from
its 43-year EU membership following the seismic vote in last month’s
referendum after a bitterly divisive campaign.
May enjoys higher
support among lawmakers, but the vote will now be decided by the
Conservative party’s 150,000 ordinary members who may want a leader who
supported Britain leaving the European Union.
“We need proven
leadership to negotiate the best deals for leaving the European Union,”
said May, who was a low-key figure on the “Remain” side, outside the
parliament after the announcement.
“This vote shows that the Conservative Party can come together and under my leadership it will,” she said.
Leadsom,
who rose to prominence in the campaign to leave the EU and has argued
for a rapid exit, played down the economic downsides of leaving the
28-member bloc.
“I believe we have a great future ahead of us,” Leadsom said in a speech in London to a room packed with supporters.
“We need to unite. We need to be positive.”
The
third challenger, justice minister Michael Gove, who announced his
surprise bid last week after initially supporting former mayor of London
Boris Johnson for the post, was rejected after winning just 46 votes
following accusations of treachery.
Leadsom has received the
endorsement of UKIP’s Nigel Farage and Johnson, who was the favorite to
succeed Cameron until last week.
“Important the next Prime
Minister is a Brexiteer – she has my backing,” wrote Farage on Twitter,
after announcing on July 4 that he was stepping down as the leader of
the UK Independence Party.
May has said she has no plans to
invoke Article 50 – the formal procedure for leaving the EU – before the
end of the year, while Leadsom has said she wants to do so as quickly
as possible.
