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May steps down

UPDATE 9:59 a.m.

Bowing to the inevitable, Theresa May announced Friday that she will step down as U.K. Conservative Party leader in two weeks, admitting defeat in her attempt to take Britain out of the European Union and sparking a contest to replace her as prime minister.

May said she will quit as head of the governing party on June 7 but stay as caretaker prime minister until the new leader is chosen, a process the Conservatives aim to complete by late July.

The new Conservative leader will become prime minister without the need for a general election, and will take up the task of trying to secure Britain's exit from the EU.

May, who has been battling to unite her fractious party ever since she took the helm almost three years ago, said "I have done my best." But she conceded that had not been enough.

Her voice breaking, May said in a televised statement outside 10 Downing St. that she would soon be leaving a job that it has been "the honour of my life to hold."

May became prime minister the month after the U.K. voted in June 2016 to leave the European Union, and her premiership has been consumed by the attempt to deliver on that verdict.

May spent more than a year and a half negotiating an exit agreement with the EU, only to see it rejected three times by Britain's Parliament.

Many Conservative lawmakers came to see May as the main obstacle to leaving the bloc, although her replacement will face the same issue: a Parliament deeply divided over whether to exit the EU, and how close a relationship to seek with Europe after it does.

Now she has quit over her failure to take Britain out of the EU on the scheduled date of March 29. Britain is currently due to leave the EU on Oct. 31, but Parliament has yet to approve divorce terms.

"I negotiated the terms of our exit and a new relationship with our closest neighbours that protects jobs, our security and our Union," May said. "I have done everything I can to convince MPs to back that deal. Sadly, I have not been able to do so."

"It is now clear to me that it is in the best interests of the country for a new prime minister to lead that effort," she added.

Multiple contenders are already jockeying to replace her and take up the challenge of securing Britain's EU exit. The early front-runner is Boris Johnson, a former foreign secretary and strong champion of Brexit.


ORIGINAL 5:50 a.m.

British Prime Minister Theresa May says she will step down as U.K. Conservative Party leader on June 7.

May is admitting defeat in her attempt to take Britain out of the European Union and sparking a contest to become the country's next prime minister.

CTV News is reporting she will stay as caretaker prime minister until the new leader is chosen, a process likely to take several weeks. The new Conservative leader will become prime minister without the need for a general election, and will take up the task of trying to secure Britain's exit from the EU.

Her voice breaking, May said in a televised statement outside 10 Downing St. that she would soon be leaving a job that it has been "the honour of my life to hold."

"I feel as certain today as I did three years ago that in a democracy, if you give people a choice you have a duty to implement what they decide," May said.

-with files from CTV News



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