May to quit, opening PM race

LONDON — Theresa May e n d e d h e r f a i l e d t h r e e - y e a r q u e s t t o l e ad Bri t ai n out of t he E u r o p e a n U n i o n o n Friday, announcing that s h e wi l l s t e p d o wn a s Conservative Party leader J une 7 and t ri ggering a contest to choose a new prime minister who will try to complete Brexit.

“I have done my best,” May said in a speech outside 10 Downing St., as close aides and her husband Phili p l ooked on, before acknowledging that it was not good enough.

C o n c l u d i n g h e r r emarks, she struggled to contain her emotions and her voice broke as she expressed “enduring gratitude to have had the opportunity to serve the country I love.”

Then s he t urned and strode through the famous black door of No. 10.

May will stay on as a caretaker prime minister until the new leader is chosen, a process the C o n s e r v a t i v e s a i m t o c o mplete by l a t e J ul y . The new party leader will become prime minister without t he need f or a general election.

S h e b e c a m e p r i m e 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 was brought down by Brexit, but her nemesis wasn't the EU, with which she successfully struck a divorce deal.

She was f elled by her own Conservative Party, which refused to accept it. The plan was defeated three times in Parliament, rejected both by pro-EU o p p o s i t i o n l a wmakers and by Brexit-supporting C o n s e r v a t i v e s w h o thought it kept Britain too closely bound to the bloc.