LONDON: Former British Prime Minister Theresa May announced Friday that she will quit as a lawmaker when an election is called this year, ending a 27-year parliamentary career that included three years as the nation’s leader during a period roiled by Brexit.
May told her local newspaper, the Maidenhead Advertiser, that her work on fighting human trafficking and modern slavery was taking up more of her time and “I have realized that, looking ahead, I would no longer be able to do my job as an MP in the way I believe is right and my constituents deserve.”
May, 67, has been the member of Parliament for Maidenhead, west of London, since 1997. She served in several government posts, including home secretary between 2010 and 2016, before being selected as Conservative leader and prime minister in the chaotic aftermath of Britain’s June 2016 vote to leave the European Union. She was Britain’s second female prime minister, after fellow Conservative Margaret Thatcher.
Brexit ultimately derailed her premiership, and she quit as party leader and prime minister in mid-2019 after repeatedly failing to get her divorce deal with the EU through a bitterly divided Parliament.
She also had tense relations with then-US President Donald Trump, who accused her of “making a mess” of Brexit.
Unlike many former prime ministers, who often make a quick exit from Parliament once out of office, May remained a backbench legislator while three Conservative successors – Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak – grappled with the political and economic consequences of Brexit.
She was occasionally critical in public of her more populist successors — especially Johnson, whose political machinations helped bring about her downfall.
Sunak tweeted that May “defines what it means to be a public servant.”
Sunak must call an election by the end of the year, but the date is up to him. He has said it is likely to be in the fall. Opinion polls show the Conservatives, in power since 2010, trailing far behind the main opposition Labour Party.
Almost 100 of the 650 lawmakers in the House of Commons have announced they will not run for re-election, including 64 Conservatives — an unusually high number.
Former British leader Theresa May says she’ll quit Parliament before an election this year
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Former British leader Theresa May says she’ll quit Parliament before an election this year
- May told her local newspaper, the Maidenhead Advertiser, that her work on fighting human trafficking and modern slavery was taking up more of her time
- May, 67, has been the member of Parliament for Maidenhead, west of London, since 1997
WHO chief says reasons US gave for withdrawing ‘untrue’
- US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced in a joint statement Thursday that Washington had formally withdrawn from the WHO
- And in a post on X, Tedros added: “Unfortunately, the reasons cited for the US decision to withdraw from WHO are untrue”
GENEVA: The head of the UN’s health agency on Saturday pushed back against Washington’s stated reasons for withdrawing from the World Health Organization, dismissing US criticism of the WHO as “untrue.”
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that US announcement this week that it had formally withdrawn from the WHO “makes both the US and the world less safe.”
And in a post on X, he added: “Unfortunately, the reasons cited for the US decision to withdraw from WHO are untrue.”
He insisted: “WHO has always engaged with the US, and all Member States, with full respect for their sovereignty.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced in a joint statement Thursday that Washington had formally withdrawn from the WHO.
They accused the agency, of numerous “failures during the Covid-19 pandemic” and of acting “repeatedly against the interests of the United States.”
The WHO has not yet confirmed that the US withdrawal has taken effect.
- ‘Trashed and tarnished’ -
The two US officials said the WHO had “trashed and tarnished” the United States, and had compromised its independence.
“The reverse is true,” the WHO said in a statement.
“As we do with every Member State, WHO has always sought to engage with the United States in good faith.”
The agency strenuously rejected the accusation from Rubio and Kennedy that its Covid response had “obstructed the timely and accurate sharing of critical information that could have saved American lives and then concealed those failures.”
Kennedy also suggested in a video posted to X Friday that the WHO was responsible for “the Americans who died alone in nursing homes (and) the small businesses that were destroyed by reckless mandates” to wear masks and get vaccinated.
The US withdrawal, he insisted, was about “protecting American sovereignty, and putting US public health back in the hands of the American people.”
Tedros warned on X that the statement “contains inaccurate information.”
“Throughout the pandemic, WHO acted quickly, shared all information it had rapidly and transparently with the world, and advised Member States on the basis of the best available evidence,” the agency said.
“WHO recommended the use of masks, vaccines and physical distancing, but at no stage recommended mask mandates, vaccine mandates or lockdowns,” it added.
“We supported sovereign governments to make decisions they believed were in the best interests of their people, but the decisions were theirs.”
- Withdrawal ‘raises issues’ -
The row came as Washington struggled to dislodge itself from the WHO, a year after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to that effect.
The one-year withdrawal process reached completion on Thursday, but Kennedy and Rubio regretted in their statement that the UN health agency had “not approved our withdrawal and, in fact, claims that we owe it compensation.”
WHO has highlighted that when Washington joined the organization in 1948, it reserved the right to withdraw, as long as it gave one year’s notice and had met “its financial obligations to the organization in full for the current fiscal year.”
But Washington has not paid its 2024 or 2025 dues, and is behind around $260 million.
“The notification of withdrawal raises issues,” WHO said Saturday, adding that the topic would be examined during WHO’s Executive Board meeting next month and by the annual World Health Assembly meeting in May.
“We hope the US will return to active participation in WHO in the future,” Tedros said Saturday.
“Meanwhile, WHO remains steadfastly committed to working with all countries in pursuit of its core mission and constitutional mandate: the highest attainable standard of health as a fundamental right for all people.”
