Theresa May has stepped down as prime minister but it won’t make Brexit any quicker or easier (EUROPE 12262/1).
Even if a new prime minister is in place by the end of July, as the Conservative Party predicts, it gives the government just weeks to get a new Brexit deal through, or face having to ask the EU for another extension.
Boris Johnson, the favourite to succeed Mrs May, called her farewell statement “dignified” and said it was now time to “come together and deliver Brexit”. He also said on Friday that the UK would be leaving the EU by the 31 October deadline, deal or no deal. “The way to get a good deal is to prepare for a no deal,” he said at a conference in Switzerland.
MPs have no legal way to stop this happening, beyond putting political pressure on the new prime minister. An alternative to Boris Johnson, such as environment minister Michael Gove, might be more sensitive to their appeals. Foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt, former Brexit secretary Dominic Raab and MP Graham Brady (who just stepped down as head of the influential backbench ‘1922 committee’) have all announced or hinted at the fact they will be running.
May’s decision and the ensuing weeks-long leadership race (voting will take place in June with a new leader to be picked by mid-July) has not gone down well in the EU.
European Parliament vice-president Mairead McGuinness said there is still “little sign or hope of the necessary compromise required emerging”. “Delivering Brexit is easier said than done, due to deeply conflicting views in the UK, and the inevitable trade-offs between contradictory aims,” she said in a statement on Friday. Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar said in Dublin that we could be entering “a phase that may be a very dangerous one for Ireland”. French president Emmanuel Macron said it’s too early to speculate on what the resignation would mean for the Brexit process.
Just the night before May’s surprise resignation, the polls closed in the UK’s European elections, with 73 MEPs now likely to take their seats in Brussels when the new European Parliament sits for the first time in July. Polls predict big wins for Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party and the pro-Remain Liberal Democrats, with the opposition Labour party polling third in some cases – and the ruling conservatives in last place (EUROPE 12252/14). Results won’t be announced until all EU countries have voted, some time late on Sunday.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn resounded to May’s resignation by calling for a new general election, but it’s not clear if his party will do well enough in a further vote to warrant that. And what the election results could mean for a second referendum are very unclear, with Corbyn notoriously vague on the topic and MPs still divided on the issue.
What is clear is that the EU is still refusing to reopen the text of the withdrawal agreement (though May and her deputy Olly Robbins had spoken to EU officials about tweaks to the political declaration). Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte insisted on Friday that the same deal “for an orderly Brexit remains on the table”. (Sarah Collins)