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LAST UPDATE | 24 May 2019
THERESA MAY HAS announced she will step down as Conservative leader on 7 June, paving the way for a Tory leadership contest with the eventual winner set to take over as British prime minister.
The Prime Minister made the announcement in an emotional statement outside 10 Downing Street this morning.
May broke down in tears as she delivered the final sentences of her speech saying it has been “the honour of my life” to be the “second female prime minister, but certainly not the last.”
A Conservative Party leadership contest will officially get underway when May’s resignation kicks in and reports indicate that the party intends to have a new leader in place before the end of July. She will remain as Prime Minister until her successor is appointed.
The development prompted calls for a general election from opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn and Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.
Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney said a no-deal Brexit is now “more likely than it’s been at any point”.
Similar sentiments were shared by a spokesperson for the Spanish government who said that a hard Brexit seems “almost impossible to avoid”.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar released a statement wishing May the best in the future.
“I got to know Theresa May very well over the last two years. She is principled, honourable, and deeply passionate about doing her best for her country, and her party,” he said.
Politicians throughout the EU have admired her tenacity, her courage, and her determination during what has been a difficult and challenging time.
The resignation follows a torrid week for May, who has been dealing with intensifying criticism from within her party since a speech on Tuesday laying out her latest plan to get her Brexit bill through parliament.
Conservative Andrea Leadsom quit her role as Commons Leader on Wednesday, saying she no longer believed the government’s approach would deliver Brexit.
May took over as Tory leader and prime minister in July 2016 after David Cameron quit in the wake of the Brexit vote, pledging in her first speech to build a “country that works for everyone”.
Her authority was left in tatters after the result of a snap election left her party without a parliamentary majority the following summer, forcing the Conservatives into a confidence and supply arrangement with the DUP.
She has faced growing criticism from MPs (some of the harshest coming from her own backbenches and even ministerial ranks) over her handling of Brexit in recent months. However, she narrowly survived a party vote of no confidence last December.
With reporting by Céimin Burke
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since we can show the Dutch how to circumvent taxes, perhaps they can show us how to run a railroad?
It would help if we had 4 times as many people in an area half the size of Ireland.
@Elma Phudd: You mean just the size of munster. Which is less than quarter the size of ireland
Sounds like a well run operation that knows what it is doing. Runs a great service AND makes A billion euro in profit for its owner the Dutch state…
Our bus and train services have to be subsidized to the tune of a billion and still offer terrible, infrequent, unreliable service with poor, unclean trains and is overstaffed with overpaid and incompetent management and staff…
Pity Irish state agencies don’t have the same nationalistic tendencies.
@iohanx: They do. Both NAMA and IBRC use section 110 charity status to dodge their taxes and make their balance sheets look more favourable for propaganda purposes. I wonder how the establishment mouthpiece above would try to spin that accounting 3 card trickery?
@Drew TheChinaman :): I don’t know where you get you figures from but the annual contract between the NTA and Irish Rail was €117 million last year.
The reason our trains aren’t as profitable is we are a stone age society when it comes to high rise. You need high density high rise in urban centres to make public transport work.
Our muppet politicians reduced maximum height from six to four storeys.
@Irish Spider-Man: and the Dutch railway company had an operating profit of 107mil this year and accumulated profits totaling a billion.
So assuming similar levels of profit for the Dutch and subsidy for the Irish over the last number of years. One has made the state a billion while running a very good service and the other cost the state a billion while running a poor service.
What the Dutch are doing is legal just exactly the same as Apple does, except unlike Apple the Dutch pay the full 12.5 % tax. So Apple does legally owe us the difference so that they are tax compliant in Ireland.
@Paul Lane:
It’s nothing like Apple. Apple sells products to other countries and these other countries quite rightly would like to charge tax to organisations trading within their jurisdiction. Any tax liability to Apple should be to the all the countries Apple is trading in and not just Ireland.
@Nick Allen: And what about the tax that the Dutch government would like to receive as their railway trades there. Holland is outside Ireland just like those countries Apple does business with…So no difference at all, and completely legal except Apple did not pay the full 12.5% which is due to us.
U2′s conglomerate moved to The Netherlands a few years ago avoiding paying Irish taxes. The Dutch Railway moved to Ireland. We’re even.
@Juan Venegas: two wrongs don’t make a right.
@Ian Moloney: You’re right. Two wrongs make a we’re even.
Let me get this straight. The Dutch state is paying us €13 million a year rather than paying itself €26 million while keeping €1 billion hidden under the bed. I’m sure the Dutch people would like to see better use made of their savings.
A reverse U2.
2U
Somethign about the Dutch – maybe that Turkish guy isn’t too far off the truth – remember Rabo Direct the straight talking bank? that was fined billions!! Imagine these clowns had the hard neck to lecture us.
And u 2 invest in holland to avoid tax
have your say