David Cameron’s resignation to set off leadership scramble
LONDON — An intense leadership battle is expected to unfold within Britain’s Conservative Party after its long-standing, passionate split over the country’s role in Europe reached a pinnacle Friday with a vote to exit the bloc and the resignation of the prime minister.
The still youthful-looking David Cameron announced he would step down after Brits rejected his plea to vote to keep Britain inside the European Union, setting in motion complex divorce proceedings expected to take two years or more to work out.
Speaking in a stoic tone, with his wife Samantha standing nearby, Cameron said Britain needs a new “captain” to manage tortuous negotiations with EU officials about how to separate Britain from the 28-nation bloc.
Strong disagreements over Britain’s place in Europe helped undercut the party support for the last Conservative prime minister, John Major, and before him Margaret Thatcher. She was removed by internal foes, as was Cameron, in effect, while Major lost a 1997 general election in part because party unity had become illusory because of a split over Europe.
There was an element of Shakespearean tragedy over the resignation of Cameron, 49.
The often cheerful prime minister, who had seemed to live a charmed political life, was laid low not by his enemies — and certainly not the often ignored Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, who faces a nascent leadership challenge of his own.
Instead, his fate was sealed by two former close friends within the Conservative Party who helped lead the campaign to leave the EU: Oxford University mate Boris Johnson and close family friend Michael Gove.
The Cameron and Gove families used to vacation together and Gove’s wife is the godmother to one of Cameron’s daughters, but their friendship dissolved in the clash over the referendum.
On Friday, Johnson and Gove had only praise for Cameron when they made a joint appearance lamenting his decision to step down— but by then, they had already, politically speaking, buried him.
Cameron said Friday a new prime minister should be in place by a party conference in October. That means the party must choose a leader, who would become prime minister.
Among the possible contenders are Johnson and Gove, as well as Home Secretary Theresa May.
Johnson didn’t utter a word Friday about whether he would become a candidate for the party’s top spot. He called his old university classmate “one of the most extraordinary politicians of our age” and commended Cameron’s “bravery” for calling the referendum.