Britain’s Next Prime Minister Set to be Woman

[Valin]

Asharq Al-awsat :

Asharq Al-awsat

7/8/16

 

London-Two weeks after the UK referendum which resulted in Brexit, the last figure of the campaign announced his withdrawal from the conservative party leadership race to succeed David Cameron in becoming UK Prime minister. At the time when the leader of UK Independence Party Nigel Farage decided to resign from his post, and London’s former Mayor Boris Johnson withdrew from the conservative presidential race, lawmakers and conservatives excluded Secretary of State for Justice Michael Gove, who only received 46 of the total votes.

 

The race was limited between Home Secretary Theresa May and Minister of State at the Department of Energy and Climate Change Andrea Leadsom, the two candidates who are competing to succeed PM David Cameron in leading the government, in a decision that will be taken by the party’s 150,000 members. May, who backed Remain during the referendum campaign, won the support of six in 10 of all MPs in the party whereas Leadsom, who supported Leave, was backed by only a quarter.

 

May remains in pole position with 199 votes – well over half of the 330 Conservative MPs – with Leadsom on 84. However, the final decision on which of them will become the UK’s second female prime minister, after Margaret Thatcher, will be made by Conservative Party members in a postal ballot due to end on September 9.

 

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[Valin]

Rage over Brexit Has Split Both the U.K.’s Major Parties
David Pryce-Jones

July 8, 2016

 

A personal anecdote wraps up the political atmosphere right now in Britain. We were in a restaurant when old friends happened to pass the table. “Isn’t Brexit frightful?” they said. When I replied that it opens the way to independence and democracy, their faces contorted with anger — it’s farewell old friends.

 

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As it is, a succession crisis arises. The first step is a sort of primary; the Tory members of Parliament have to choose candidates and a later vote by party members will decide the winner. Two possible Brexiteer candidates, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, have conducted a feud that misfired, putting them both out of the running. The Home Secretary, Theresa May, has convinced a majority of MPs to vote for her, but she campaigned to remain in the EU, and might well find some way to finesse Brexit. A minority of MPs prefer Andrea Leadsom, a backbencher who stood out arguing the Brexit case intelligently and calmly. Anyhow the next prime minister will be a woman.

 

Post-Brexit, a veil, or better a shroud, should be drawn over Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour party. Corbyn himself cannot explain why his long-standing opposition to the EU ended with his support for remaining in, thus alienating millions of traditional Labourites, and his response to the party’s Muslim-led anti-Semitism is — how to put it — wishy-washy. Shadow cabinet members have resigned in a bloc, a motion of no confidence was passed, and Corbyn looks the other way.

 

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[Valin]

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