Meet the main contenders
Boris Johnson
Johnson, 54, is a direct descendant of King George II – his full name is Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson – and he has passed through many hallowed corridors of the British establishment. There was Eton College and the University of Oxford, where he was in the same classes as David Cameron, who became British prime minister. In addition to foreign secretary, Johnson has been London’s mayor. He was a journalist, editing The Spectator, a political magazine. He is a leading supporter of Brexit. He has spoken of his admiration for Trump, although as mayor, he said the U.S. president was “clearly out of his mind.” One in four Britons say he would make a good prime minister, according to a survey by YouGov, a research firm.
Dominic Raab
Raab, 45, worked for an international law firm that litigated against war criminals before he joined Britain’s foreign diplomatic corps as an adviser in 2000. He has a black belt in karate and boxes regularly. Raab resigned as Brexit secretary in May’s government, so he could vote against her deal to withdraw from the European Union. He served only five months in the role. In interviews with the British media, Raab has spoken of wanting to get a “fairer deal for working Britain.” He would do this, he said, by cutting taxes.
Sajid Javid
Javid, 49, has held various Cabinetlevel positions in Conservative Party governments, most recently as home secretary, or interior minister. He is the son of a former bus driver from Pakistan and represents the face of British conservatism. Javid voted to stay in the EU in the Brexit referendum in June 2016 but has since campaigned aggressively for Britain to abide by the vote’s outcome and leave. He takes a hard line on immigration and has been a fiercely vocal opponent of letting the wives and children of former Islamic State fighters return to Britain. Javid is trying to revoke the citizenship of Shamima Begum, who fled to Syria’s battlefields at 15.
Michael Gove
Another prominent supporter of Britain leaving the EU, Gove, 51, is minister for the environment. He had a Cabinet-level role in Cameron’s government, and he is a seasoned operator with extremely good debating skills. (At Oxford, Gove was president of the debating society.) Like Johnson, Gove is a former journalist, and he secured the first interview with Trump for a British publication after the American presidential election in 2016. Gove boasted in that interview for the Times of London that he spent an hour with the president-elect in his “glitzy, golden man cave” in Trump Tower in New York City. Trump told Gove that Britain was “smart to leave the EU.” Gove predicted Trump would resign or lose the 2020 election.
Andrea Leadsom
Leadsom, 56, was the last candidate standing against May in the 2016 race to succeed Cameron. She resigned Wednesday as leader of the House of Commons – a job responsible for arranging the order of government business in Britain’s Parliament. Leadsom is an ardent backer of Brexit, but she stumbled during the leadership contest with May three years ago after she implied in an interview with a British newspaper that she thought she would make a better prime minister than May because being a mother gave her an “advantage” over the childless May. “I have children who are going to have children who will directly be part of what happens next,” Leadsom said in the BBC interview.