Theresa May Steps Down as U.K. Prime Minister, Pound Surges

LONDON – Theresa May announced her resignation as Prime Minister earlier today. Her resignation will come into effect June 7 and a leadership contest will begin in the following week for her replacement.

May will take on a caretaker role until a new leader has been elected. “I have done everything I can to convince MPs to back that deal. Sadly, I have not been able to do so. I tried three times,” she said in a speech delivered at Downing Street.

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Earlier this week, May put offered Members of Parliament the chance to vote on whether to hold a second Brexit referendum as one of the new proposals under her amended Withdrawal Agreement Bill. The pound shot up as high as $1.28 in response. It fell back down over the past two days, to around $1.26, but following her resignation speech Friday, it shot up to $1.27.

However, Tory MPs said that they will have to oppose the Withdrawal Agreement with tabloids speculating that 46 members of May’s party will vote down the latest iteration.

The Bill, laid out in November last year and amended three times since then, has been continually rejected.

“It is, and will always remain, a matter of deep regret to me that I have not been able to deliver Brexit. I will shortly leave the job that it has been the honor of my life to hold – the second female Prime Minster but certainly not the last. I do so with no ill-will,” she said.

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