Theresa May is photographed holding up a placard which reads ‘Je suis Juif’ (I am Jewish) at a memorial for the victims of the Paris massacre
Andrea Leadsom Exits Race for Britain’s Next Prime Minister meaning Home Secretary Theresa May is only candidate left in the race
A little under two weeks since she announced her leadership bid, Andrea Leadsom has sensationally quit the race to become Conservative Party leader and Prime Minister of the U.K.
“We need a new Prime Minister as soon as possible” Leadsom said, adding that she had the support of less than 25% of the parliamentary party. Leadsom backed her lone rival Home Secretary Theresa May, saying she “is ideally placed to implement Brexit on the best possible terms for the British people.”
The country’s Energy Minister faced a series of questions surrounding her resume, in which it was alleged that she embellished her record in the private sector. She was also criticized for an interview with the London Times where she suggested that being a mother gave her an advantage over May, who does not have children.
Leadsom’s withdrawal means May is the sole contender to succeed David Cameron as leader of the party and the country. The Home Secretary could become Prime Minister as soon as Monday afternoon, unless the party decides to run the contest with the candidate who finished third in the ballot — Justice Minister Michael Gove.
Theresa Mary May (née Brasier; born 1 October 1956) is a British politician who has been theHome Secretary since 2010, and the Member of Parliament (MP) for Maidenhead since 1997. A member of the Conservative Party, May identifies as a One-Nation Conservative and has been characterised as a liberal conservative.May is the presumptive successor to David Cameron as leader of the Conservative Party and consequential Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, as a result of Andrea Leadsom dropping from the Conservative Leadership race on the 11th of July 2016.
Born in Eastbourne, Sussex, May studied geography at St Hugh's College, Oxford. From 1977 to 1983, May worked at the Bank of England, and from 1985 to 1997 at the Association for Payment Clearing Services, also serving as a councillor for the London Borough of Merton's Durnsford Ward. After unsuccessful attempts to get elected to the House of Commons in 1992 and 1994, she was elected MP for Maidenhead in the 1997 general election. She went on to be appointed Chairman of the Conservative Party and be sworn of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council in 2002.
She served in a number of roles in the Shadow Cabinets of William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith,Michael Howard, and David Cameron, including Shadow Leader of the House of Commons andShadow Work and Pensions Secretary, before being appointed Home Secretary and Minister for Women and Equalities in 2010, giving up the latter role in 2012. May is the longest-serving Home Secretary for sixty years and has pursued reform of the police, taken a harder line on drug policy and introduced restrictions on immigration.
In June 2016, May announced her candidacy for the Conservative party leadership election and quickly emerged as the front-runner. She won the first ballot on 5 July 2016 by a significant margin over the other candidates, receiving a full 50% of the votes. On 7 July, May won the votes of 199 MPs; she faced the vote of Conservative Party members across the United Kingdom in an all-female contest with Andrea Leadsom, one of the main figures of the Brexit campaign,until the latter quit on 11 July over controversial remarks made in the days before. The result is expected to be announced on 9 September 2016
Home Secretary (since 2010)
On 12 May 2010, Theresa May was appointed Home Secretaryand Minister for Women and Equality by Prime Minister David Cameron as part of his first Cabinet, becoming the fourth woman to hold one of the British Great Offices of State, after (in order of seniority) Margaret Thatcher (Prime Minister), Margaret Beckett (Foreign Secretary) and Jacqui Smith (Home Secretary).As Home Secretary, May is also a member of the National Security Council.She is the longest-serving Home Secretary for over 60 years, since James Chuter Ede who served over six years and two months from 1945 until 1951. May's appointment as Home Secretary was somewhat unexpected, as Chris Grayling had served as shadow Home Secretary in opposition.
May's debut as Home Secretary involved overturning several of the previous Labour Government's measures on data collection and surveillance in England and Wales. By way of a Government Bill which became the Identity Documents Act 2010, she brought about the abolition of the Labour Government's National Identity Card and database scheme and also reformed the regulations on the retention of DNA samples for suspects and controls on the use of CCTV cameras. On 20 May 2010, May announced the adjournment of the deportation to the USA of alleged computer hacker Gary McKinnon.] She also suspended the registration scheme for carers of children and vulnerable people.
On 4 August 2010 it was reported that May was scrapping the former Labour Government's proposed "go orders" scheme to protect women from domestic violence by banning abusers from the victim's home. This was followed on 6 August 2010 by the closure of the previous Government's "ContactPoint" database of 11 million under-18-year olds designed to protect children in the wake of the Victoria Climbié child abuse scandal.
On 2 June 2010, May faced her first major national security incident as Home Secretary with the Cumbria shootings. She delivered her first major speech in the House of Commons as Home Secretary in a statement on this incident,later visiting the victims with the Prime Minister.Also in June 2010, May banned the Indian Muslim preacher Zakir Naik from entering the United Kingdom. resulting in Home Office officials who disagreed with the Government's policy of excluding Zakir Naik from Britain being suspended from work.[38] In late June 2010, May announced plans for a temporary cap on UK visas for non-EU migrants. The move raised concerns about the impact on the UK economy.
Speaking at the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) conference on 29 June 2010, May announced radical cuts to the Home Office budget, likely to lead to a reduction in police numbers. In July 2010, it was reported that May had corresponded with Kate and Gerry McCann, the parents of the missing child Madeleine McCann. In August 2010, May attended a private meeting with Mr and Mrs McCann to discuss their case.
In July 2010, May presented the House of Commons with proposals for a fundamental review of the previous Labour Government's security and counter-terrorism legislation, including "stop and search" powers, and her intention to review the 28-day limit on detaining terrorist suspects without charge. In mid-July 2010, May oversaw a second major gun incident in the north of England with an unsuccessful week-long police operation to capture and arrest Raoul Moat, an ex-convict who shot three people, killing one. The suspect later shot himself dead. During the incident, Moat was shot with a long-range taser. It later transpired that the firm supplying the taser, Pro-Tect, was in breach of its licence by supplying the police directly with the weapon. Its licence was revoked by the Home Office after the Moat shooting. On 1 October 2010 the BBC reported that the director of the company, Peter Boatman, had apparently killed himself over the incident.
In August 2010, May banned the English Defence League from holding a march in Bradford, West Yorkshire, on 28 August. The EDL protested against the ban, claiming they planned a "peaceful demonstration".[Around 2 pm on the day of the ban, violent disturbances in Bradford between EDL members and their opponents were reported, calling for intervention by riot police.
In early September 2010, allegations resurfaced regarding the phone-tapping scandal; tabloid paper journalists had been jailed in 2009 for intercepting the mobile phone messages of major public figures. The case involved a journalist employed by former News of the World editor Andy Coulson, who had later become director of communications for Prime Minister David Cameron. (Coulson was absolved of any role in the bugging incidents during a House of Commons enquiry in 2009.) Labour Party leadership candidate Ed Balls called on the Home Secretary to make a statement to the House on the matter. On 5 September, May told the BBC that there were "no grounds for a public enquiry". The Metropolitan Police said it might consider re-examining evidence on the allegations. On 6 September 2010, May faced parliamentary questions over the allegations following an intervention by Speaker Bercow.
On 9 December 2010, in the wake of violent student demonstrations in central London against increases to higher-education tuition fees, May praised the actions of the police in controlling the demonstrations but was described by The Daily Telegraph as "under growing political pressure" due to her handling of the protests.
In December 2010, May declared that deployment of water cannon by police forces in mainland Britain was an operational decision which had been "resisted until now by senior police officers." On 9 August 2011, May rejected their use and said: "the way we police in Britain is not through use of water cannon. The way we police in Britain is through consent of communities." May said: "I condemn utterly the violence in Tottenham... Such disregard for public safety and property will not be tolerated, and the Metropolitan Police have my full support in restoring order." She returned to the UK from holiday to meet senior police officials on 8 August.
In the aftermath of the riots May urged the identification of as many as possible of the young criminals involved. She said: "when I was in Manchester last week, the issue was raised to me about the anonymity of juveniles who are found guilty of crimes of this sort. The Crown Prosecution Service is to order prosecutors to apply for anonymity to be lifted in any youth case they think is in the public interest. The law currently protects the identity of any suspect under the age of 18, even if they are convicted, but it also allows for an application to have such restrictions lifted, if deemed appropriate." May added that "what I've asked for is that CPS guidance should go to prosecutors to say that where possible, they should be asking for the anonymity of juveniles who are found guilty of criminal activity to be lifted."[
At the Conservative Party Conference on 4 October 2011, while arguing that the Human Rights Act needed to be amended, May gave the example of a foreign national who the Courts ruled was allowed to remain in the UK, "because—and I am not making this up—he had a pet cat". In response, the Royal Courts of Justice issued a statement, denying that this was the reason for the tribunal's decision in that case, and stating that the real reason was that he was in a genuine relationship with a British partner, and owning a pet cat was simply one of many pieces of evidence given to show that the relationship was "genuine". The Home Office had failed to apply its own rules for dealing with unmarried partners of people settled in the UK. Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke subsequently called May's comments "laughable and childlike."Amnesty International said May's comments only fuelled "myths and misconceptions" about the Human Rights Act and the fact "that someone in Theresa May's position can be so misinformed as to parade out a story about someone being allowed to stay in Britain because of a cat is nothing short of alarming."
In June 2013, May signed an order prohibiting Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, two American bloggers who co-founded the anti-Muslim group Stop Islamization of America, from entering the United Kingdom on the basis that their presence would not be "conducive to the public good". The pair had been invited to attend an English Defense League march at Woolwich, where Drummer Lee Rigby had been killed earlier that year. The pressure group Hope not Hate led a campaign to exclude the pair, whom the Home Office described as "inflammatory speakers who promote hate".
May supported the detention of David Miranda, partner of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald under the Terrorism Act 2000, saying that critics of the Metropolitan Police action needed to "think about what they are condoning". Lib Dem peer and former Director of Public Prosecutions Ken Macdonald accused May of an "ugly and unhelpful" attempt to implicate those who were concerned about the police action of "condoning terrorism". The High Court subsequently acknowledged there were "indirect implications for press freedom" but ruled the detention legal.
On 29 August 2014, the British government raised the terrorist threat level to "severe", as Prime Minister David Cameron and May warned a terrorist attack was "highly likely" following the coming to prominence of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. May admitted that, although the threat level had been hiked to the second-highest possible, there was no intelligence warning of an imminent attack.
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