British PM May expected to announce date of her departure

British Prime Minister Theresa May is expected on Friday to announce the date of her departure, triggering a contest that will bring a new leader to power who is likely to push for a more decisive Brexit divorce deal.

After a crisis-riven premiership of almost three years, May is due to meet the chairman of the powerful Conservative 1922 Committee, which can make or break prime ministers, to set out a timetable for her departure.

Ministers expect May to make a statement by mid-morning.

“The 1922 Committee are coming in with a revolver and basically pointing it at her head,” said Gus O’Donnell, Britain’s top civil servant from 2005 to 2011. “He (Brady) will leave the room and possibly leave the revolver in there.”

May, once a reluctant supporter of EU membership, who won the top job in the turmoil that followed the 2016 Brexit vote, steps down with her central pledges - to lead the United Kingdom out of the bloc and heal its divisions - unfulfilled.

She endured repeated crises and humiliation in her effort to find a compromise Brexit deal that parliament could ratify, and bequeaths a deeply divided country and a political elite that is deadlocked over how, when or whether to leave the EU.

The treasurer of the 1922 Committee, Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, said he expected May would stay on as a caretaker prime minister while a successor was chosen.

“It would be much tidier if she stays on as caretaker while we go through our processes of electing a leader of the Conservative Party who will then eventually take over as prime minister,” Clifton-Brown told the BBC.

(REUTERS)