We’re gong to close down this live blog now. Thanks for reading and for all the comments. Here’s a summary of the day’s events:
It’s finally happened. Theresa May has announced her departure from 10 Downing Street. In a speech this morning following a meeting with Sir Graham Brady, the chair of the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers, the prime minister said she would stand aside on Friday 7 June, with the process to select a new Conservative party leader starting the following week. Fighting back tears, she said:
I will shortly leave the job that it has been the honour of my life to hold. The second female prime minister but certainly not the last. I do so with no ill will, but with enormous and enduring gratitude to have had the opportunity to serve the country I love.
The foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, reportedly became the first cabinet minister to declare he would run to replace May as prime minister. According to his local paper, the Farnham Herald, he made the announcement at the Haslemere festival in his constituency of South West Surrey.
The former foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, has already declared his intention to stand. On Friday, he said: “We will leave the EU on 31 October, deal or no deal. The way to get a good deal is to prepare for a no deal.
Some of those May invoked in her speech later distanced themselves from her and her legacy as prime minister. Grenfell United said the person to inhabit Number 10 would “inherit the moral debt owed by this government” to the families of 72 people who lost their lives, while the daughter of Sir Nicholas Winton said May had failed to live up to his legacy.
The head of the Electoral Commission attacked the authorities for not taking seriously his organisation’s warnings about the European elections. In an article for the Guardian, Rob Posner wrote that the commission raised concerns about the elections, in which many people were denied their vote.
The digital minister, Margot James, has raised questions over how representative the Tory membership set to elect the new party leader is of Conservative voters. She has told Channel 4 News:
Effectively, the prime minister is going to be chosen by roughly 100,000 people, assuming we go that far into the contest, who don’t … some would argue they don’t really represent the majority of Conservative voters, let alone the country as a whole.
Michael Gove has yet to declare he’s running but his Tory colleague, Bob Seely, is getting his declaration of support in early:
Bob Seely MP
✔@IoWBobSeely
Our next leader has to: renew in office, lead in Parliament and strengthen the Union – all whilst delivering Brexit. For me, @michaelgove is the person who’ll be best able to achieve this, that’s why I am supporting him as leader of the @Conservatives and the next #PM.
We’re doing something different … and we’d like to explain why. Our journalism now reaches record numbers around the world and more than a million people have supported our reporting. Unlike many news organisations, we haven’t put up a paywall – our journalism remains accessible to all, so more people have access to accurate information with integrity at its heart. This is The Guardian’s model for open, independent journalism.
Our model enables people to support us in a way that works for them. Readers’ support safeguards our essential editorial independence.
The US President, Donald Trump, who is due to make a state visit to the UK in early June, has praised Theresa May.
I feel badly for Theresa. I like her very much. She is a good woman. She worked very hard.
She is very strong. She decided to do something that some people were surprised at. Some people weren’t. It’s for the good of her country. But, I like her very much. In fact, I’ll be seeing her in two weeks.
Play Video
0:31
Trump says he feels bad for Theresa May after her resignation – video
During her speech today, Theresa May quoted the humanitarian, Sir Nicholas Winton, who rescued hundreds of children headed for Nazi concentration camps during the Second World War. The prime minister said he once told her:
Never forget that compromise is not a dirty word. Life depends on compromise.
“He was right,” May said this morning.
This evening though, Winton’s daughter has accused May of failing to honour her father’s legacy by helping refugee children. Writing for the Times Red Box, Barbara Winton has said she is pleased his words are remembered.
Sadly, such admiration has not led to following in his footsteps in relation to today’s child refugees.
Like so many others who believe the UK should be welcoming more vulnerable refugee children, I increasingly despair at the situation facing child refugees in Europe today.
Who’s likely to replace Theresa May as prime minister? Watch out for the underdog, writes my colleague, Rajeev Syal, who notes that the early favourite hasn’t prevailed in previous contests:
Wondering what happens next – or perhaps getting ready to lose some sleep thinking about whether the UK is on the road to a ‘no deal’ Brexit?
You might want to take a look at this piece from the Guardian’s Political Editor, Heather Stewart.
On the possibility of ‘no deal,’ she writes:
It certainly looks a lot more likely than it did at the start of the week. Champions of Johnson and Raab hope they might convince the EU27 to offer a much looser relationship, based around a Canada-style free-trade deal and, crucially, to ditch the backstop.
Failing that, they could try to take Britain out without a deal. There has not been a majority for that approach in parliament, but the hard Brexiters believe a strong showing by Farage’s party will shift the balance.
Certainly, backbenchers who masterminded the last parliamentary manoeuvres to block no deal, including Nick Boles and Yvette Cooper, doubt whether they would be able to do so again.
If parliament did move against no deal, the new leader could call a general election, or even a referendum, in a bid to win a strong public mandate.
Electoral Commission chief: EU elections “weren’t good enough”
The head of the Electoral Commission has said that the failure of authorities to take full heed of his body’s warnings about potential problems arising during the UK’s “last-minute” participation in European Parliamentary was “not good enough.”
In a piece for the Guardian, Bob Posner writes that that the commission had raised concerns with the government, with rising urgency in the first months of this year, about “the election that was never going to happen.”
Ongoing delays to confirming the poll continued to escalate the risks, according to Posner, writing after the Guardian reported in depth on the treatment of EU citizens in the European electionsafter many people reported being denied their democratic right to vote.
“We had contingency plans in place for these elections, which we scaled up as the date grew closer, including holding funding in reserve. We did this in the face of substantial criticism from some quarters of the public, media and politics, including government ministers,” he added.
Finally, on 1 April, the government confirmed that public funds could be used by returning officers to make preparations, Posner writers, although his commission said that the time that this still presented an unprecedented level of uncertainty.
Only on 7 May – the date by which voters had to be registered to vote at the poll – was it confirmed by government that the elections would go ahead.
“While it is understandable that no changes were made in the face of the government’s stern assurance that the UK would not participate in the election, it is deeply disappointing and in truth not good enough.”
EU citizens Moritz Valero and Kat Sellner, who were turned away from a polling station in London, May 2019. Photograph: Andy Hall/The Observer
Remainers within the Conservative Party will prevent any “hard Brexiteer” from making it to the final all-member ballot at their own peril, warns Tom Quinn, a senior lecturer at the University of Essex’s Department of Government.
In this piece for The Conversation about the race, he write that it would infuriate the Tory grassroots:
Whereas this might have been risked in the past, doing so now with the Tories haemorrhaging votes to Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party could put the very existence of the Conservative Party in danger.
Some have even raised the possibility of allowing more than two candidates to go forward to the members, to ensure a proper choice.
New Liberal Democrat leader to take up job on July 23
The leader of the Liberal Democrats, Vince Cable, has confirmed that he will be handing over to a successor on July 23 as the process of replacing him gets underway.
“I said earlier this year that the time would soon come to hand over the leadership of the party to a new generation,” he said in a statement posted on the party’s website.
“That process begins today: I will be proud to hand over a bigger, stronger party on July 23rd.
Deputy leader Jo Swinson is firm favourite to succeed Cable, who announced the start of the contest in an email to party members.
He said membership was at a record level and the party had enjoyed the best local election results in its history.
Cable added:
There are major challenges ahead. One is to win, finally, the battle to stop Brexit. Our campaigning has given hope; now we need to secure a referendum in Parliament, and then win it.
Another is the opportunity created by the conflict and decay within the two main parties to build a powerful, liberal, green, and social democratic force in the centre ground of British politics. We are now in an excellent position to lead such a movement.
Vince Cable(@vincecable)
After our party’s best ever council election results and a surge of support for the European elections, my thanks to everyone who has helped rebuild the @LibDems. I’ll be proud to hand over a bigger, stronger party to a new leader on July 23rd. https://t.co/gTYVfG99sD#StopBrexit
Bob Seely MP
