Featured Photo: from defenceimagery.mod.uk. License.
After long anticipation of her departure, Theresa May has finally announced her resignation as Prime Minister and stepping down as Conservative Party leader, meaning a leadership election within the party will be triggered, most likely leading to a new Prime Minister, at some point in July, being the likeliest.
I am fairly surprised that she had managed to hang on for this long over her many fumbles and defeats that she has faced, including the disastrous snap election she called, leaving her with a hung parliament and also the numerous defeats over a BREXIT withdrawal agreement and deal being agreed and passed, allowing the UK to begin the process of actually leaving into a transition period. Many previous PM’s would certainly have resigned over just one of these defeats, but for some reason Theresa May managed to hang on through all of them, though many knew that her departure was inevitable eventually.
The first real signs we saw that her resignation was imminent, was her cabinet turning on her, once this happens to a PM, it pretty much signals the death throes of their premiership, as cabinet are always the most loyal part of a Prime Minister’s administration. Although she tried to dig her heels in at the last minute, even in spite of much of her cabinet turning against her, in the end it was all too much and just like that, she was practically ousted, in the middle of an election out of all times, not a good look at all and hardly strong and stable, as she had liked to claim.
Unfortunately, Theresa May is another victim of the BREXIT chaos that also swallowed David Cameron’s premiership, a very divisive matter that has no clear agreement or majority to solve, the next leader is very much likely to face similar circumstances of being stuck, no matter what way they decide to take, even a no-deal route has a good chance of being blocked or leading to a no-confidence vote from rebel remain-supporting Conservative MPs that will likely topple the government and lead to an early General Election, which I am pretty sure will happen at some point.
I think although Theresa May’s resignation was guaranteed to happen at some point, I think it happening right now has another main reason—the BREXIT Party. Nigel Farage’s newly created BREXIT Party has shot up the polls in recent weeks, very much threatening the Conservative party in future elections and most likely handing the Labour party a majority government in a General Election. One of the latest polls, that came out around the time May resigned, shows the BREXIT Party in 2nd place behind the Labour Party in Westminster voting intentions, which is a massive blow to the Conservatives, as they continue to drop down the polls—if the result of the poll were replicated in an election, the BREXIT Party could pick up as many as 80-133 seats, mostly from the Conservative party, pretty much splitting it in half from the seats it currently holds—I believe this is one of the main reasons Theresa May was ousted, to try and save the Conservative Party from future electoral destruction. It is likely that many senior figures of the party believe a Boris Johnson premiership, or another BREXIT supporting PM, would bring the voters back from the BREXIT Party.
But enough of what may happen in the future… what about now?
The Leadership Election – How Does it Work?
When a party leader steps down or resigns, a leadership election is triggered, Theresa May will officially step down as Conservative Party leader on 7th June, triggering the Conservative Party leadership election for a new party leader and eventual PM. Until the point where a new party leader becomes the PM, Theresa May will remain the caretaker PM.
First of all, the hopefuls step up to the challenge, each hopeful candidate to become the next party leader requires the backing of at least two fellow party MPs–although technically they only need one MP backer as a candidate counts as their own endorsement–if they have that then they enter into the race to become the next party leader. It is possible we could see as many or even more than 20 possible candidates step up in this leadership election, which is a much higher than usual amount. If only one candidate steps up, which is very unlikely to happen, then they automatically become the next party leader without needing an election—as they have no one to face.
Once candidates have stepped up with the required MP backers, the electing eventually begins, going through several rounds of votes by party MPs until there are two candidates remaining. Once there are two left the Conservative Party registered members get to have their say, Party members can be any UK citizen who has signed up as a Conservative Party member, whoever wins that vote is elected the new party leader.
But, they do not automatically become the next Prime Minister, Theresa May will still remain the caretaker PM until a set date is reached where the Queen officially appoints the new Party Leader as Prime Minister.
What then?
After that, all the fun yet again begins over BREXIT and all the other lot of usual business, under the leadership of a new PM, with the most likely next PM being a BREXITEER, which could lead to further division or even splitting up of the Conservative Party in the near future. This is more so if the next PM decides to try and go for a no-deal BREXIT, many remain-supporting Conservative MPs have declared they will join in a no-confidence effort to topple the government if this were to happen and thus we end up having another General Election anyway and I have a certain feeling that something like this will actually end up happening. I do believe we will see an early General Election sometime soon, either through no-confidence, the unsatisfied DUP ending the coalition or simply that no solution could be reached with such a split parliament. There just seems to be, as of right now, nowhere to go, no way to solve this problem and I fear that even after a General Election, we are still going to be in the same predicament—totally stuck in a jammy mess.
Throughout this week I will be doing several posts that have overviews on all of the candidates running in the Conservative Leadership election, as well as their stance on BREXIT.
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