Theresa May
Theresa May is a prominent British politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from July 2016 until May 2019, becoming only the second woman to hold the position. Born on October 1, 1956, in Eastbourne, England, she grew up in Oxfordshire and graduated from St. Hugh's College, University of Oxford, with a degree in geography. May began her political career in the Conservative Party in the 1980s, eventually becoming a Member of Parliament for Maidenhead in 1997.
Her tenure as Prime Minister was defined by her attempts to negotiate Brexit following the 2016 referendum, although she faced significant challenges in reaching an agreement with Parliament, leading to her resignation in 2019. Before becoming Prime Minister, she served as Home Secretary from 2010 to 2016, where she was known for her efforts in security and immigration policies. May is noted for her strong negotiating style and her commitment to public service, as well as for her personal passion for cooking and fashion. In March 2024, she announced her resignation as a Member of Parliament, marking nearly three decades of representation.
Theresa May
- Born: October 1, 1956
- Place of Birth: Eastbourne, United Kingdom
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Education: St. Hugh’s College, University of Oxford
Significance: Theresa May is a British politician and a long-standing member of Parliament. In July 2016, May was elected leader of the Conservative Party and was appointed prime minister of the United Kingdom, becoming just the second woman in British history to hold that office. After her tenure was largely defined by her attempts and ultimate failure to reach an agreement with lawmakers regarding a deal for the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union, she announced the resignation of her positions as the leader of the Conservative Party and as prime minister in May 2019. In March 2024, May announced her resignation as a Member of Parliament. She is remembered for her tough negotiating style and passion in her government, as well as fashionable shoe choices.
Background
Theresa May was born Theresa Brasier on October 1, 1956, in Eastbourne, a seaside resort town on the southwestern coast of England. She was the only child of Zaidee Brasier and the Rev. Hubert Brasier, a vicar in the Anglican Church. May grew up in Oxfordshire County in southeastern England and attended Wheatley Park Comprehensive School. In 1976, she met Philip May at a student function for Britain’s Conservative Party, and they were married in September 1980. Rev. Brasier presided over the ceremony, but just over a year later, he was killed in a car accident. Zaidee Brasier died in early 1982 of multiple sclerosis.
Theresa May graduated from St. Hugh’s College at the University of Oxford in May 1977 with a degree in geography. She began work as a graduate trainee with the Bank of England and eventually moved up to junior analyst. After six years with the bank, May took a job with the Association for Payment Clearing Services, where she served as head of European affairs and later as senior adviser on international affairs.
May developed an interest in politics as a young girl, expressing her desire to one day become Britain’s first female prime minister. According to BBC News, May was annoyed when Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher was the first to achieve that goal in 1979. May started working for the local Conservative Party in the mid-1980s, taking a job stuffing envelopes. In 1986, she was elected as a council member for the London borough of Merton. She served in that position from 1986 to 1994.
Political Career
May unsuccessfully ran for the parliamentary seat in North West Durham in 1992. Two years later, she campaigned for a seat in the London suburb of Barking but also lost. In 1997, May won a parliamentary seat representing Maidenhead, a town in Berkshire County west of London. As a member of the Conservative opposition, she was named Shadow Education Secretary in 1999 by the Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair. In British politics, a shadow cabinet is an appointed group of officials from the Opposition party—the party with the second-largest number of seats in Parliament. Shadow cabinet members mirror the official cabinet members, offering contrasting viewpoints from those in power.
From 1999 to 2010, May held a number of shadow cabinet positions in the Labour governments of Blair and his successor, Gordon Brown. In 2002, she was the first woman to be named Conservative Party chairman. In that position, May offered a harsh criticism of the Conservatives, saying during a 2002 speech that the public views them as the “nasty party.”
In 2010, the Conservative Party won the most seats in the parliamentary election but not enough for an outright majority. In the United Kingdom, the leader of the party with a majority of seats in Parliament forms a government and becomes prime minister. If the leading party cannot gain enough seats to hold a voting majority, it must form an alliance with other parties to create a coalition government. The leader of the largest party is then usually named prime minister. David Cameron was appointed prime minister after his Conservative Party aligned with the Liberal Democrats to form a coalition.
With the Conservatives in charge, May was appointed home secretary in May 2010. The home secretary is one of the highest positions in the British government. The office is responsible for matters concerning immigration, security, and law and order. May served in that capacity from 2010 to 2016, becoming the longest-serving home secretary in more than fifty years. During her tenure, May proposed a measure increasing internet surveillance of suspected terrorists, criticized corruption in the Police Federation, and oversaw a reduction in crime in the United Kingdom.
In 2016, Prime Minister Cameron placed a referendum on the ballot asking citizens if the United Kingdom should remain in the European Union. The European Union was at the time an economic and political union of twenty-eight European nations. Cameron believed the country should stay in the union, but the voters chose to leave by a 52 to 48 percent margin. The vote was a political embarrassment for Cameron. In June 2016, he resigned as party leader and as prime minister. May was elected to replace Cameron as leader of the Conservative Party and was appointed prime minister on July 13, 2016.
Premiership
May became the second woman to hold the office of prime minister. She promised to adhere to the referendum and follow through with the UK voters’ desire to leave the European Union—a process informally known as Brexit. In September 2017, as negotiations between the United Kingdom and the European Union continued for a planned 2019 withdrawal, May proposed a two-year transitional period, during which the economic impacts of Brexit would be phased in slowly.
In 2017, May called for a new election hoping to solidify the Conservatives’ position in Parliament. Instead, the party lost thirteen seats, putting May’s tenure as prime minister in jeopardy. She was able to forge an alliance with the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland to form a new coalition government and maintain her position.
Following several months of further negotiations with the European Union and having survived a vote of no confidence initiated by members of her own party in December 2018, May brought her deal outlining the terms for the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union to a vote in Parliament in January 2019; the plan was overwhelmingly rejected. Within Parliament, a consensus could not be reached over whether to make a more drastic or soft exit, or something in between. Still, May made two more attempts to pass her Brexit deal in March, but the plan was voted down each time despite her offer to resign if it had been accepted. Though an extension of the deadline for departure was reached in early April, with the deadlock over the Brexit deal remaining, May announced on May 24, 2019, that she was resigning from her positions as leader of the Conservative Party and as prime minister to allow for a new leader to hopefully oversee the consensus needed. She was succeeded as prime minister by fellow Conservative Boris Johnson.
As a Member of Parliament, in 2021 she opposed budget cuts for foreign aid and received a personal sanction from Russia banning her from entering the country because of her position on Russia's invasion of Ukraine. During the COVID-19 pandemic, May criticized the government's restrictions and opposed a second lockdown.
On March 8, 2024, May announced she would not seek reelection as a Member of Parliament. May stated in her resignation message that she felt she would be unable to represent her Maidenhead constituents appropriately due to her increased focus on several important causes, including modern slavery and human trafficking. At the time of her announcement, May had represented Maidenhead in Berkshire for nearly three decades.
Personal Life
As of early 2019, Theresa and Philip May had a home in the village of Sonning in Berkshire County. May spent her time hiking in the mountains, cooking, and exploring fashion. She had a collection of more than one hundred cookbooks, and her signature leopard-print shoes were a personal style trademark. May also has type 1 diabetes and must inject herself with insulin twice a day. Her husband Philip was knighted in 2019, entitling Theresa as Lady May. In 2023, she released her book The Abuse of Power: Confronting Injustice in Public Life, in which she offers her perspective and suggested approach to amending politics and public life in the United Kingdom.
Bibliography
Blackburn, Virginia. Theresa May: The Downing Street Revolution. John Blake, 2017.
Castle, Stephen. "Theresa May, Former U.K. Prime Minister, Won’t Stand in Next Election." The New York Times, 8 Mar. 2024, www.nytimes.com/2024/03/08/world/europe/uk-theresa-may.html. Accessed 29 Mar. 2024.
Day, Elizabeth. “Theresa May—What Lies beyond the Public Image?” The Guardian, 27 July 2014, www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jul/27/theresa-may-profile-beyond-the-public-image. Accessed 20 Apr. 2023.
Hunt, Alex. “Theresa May and the DUP Deal: What You Need to Know.” BBC News, 26 June 2017, www.bbc.com/news/election-2017-40245514. Accessed 20 Apr. 2023.
Mackintosh, Eliza. "Brexit Failure Forces British Prime Minister Theresa May to Announce Resignation." CNN, 24 May 2019, www.cnn.com/2019/05/24/europe/theresa-may-resigns-brexit-gbr-intl/index.html. Accessed 20 Apr. 2023.
Prince, Rosa. Theresa May: The Enigmatic Prime Minister. Biteback Publishing, 2017.
“The Rt Hon Theresa May MP.” Gov.UK, www.gov.uk/government/people/theresa-may#biography. Accessed 20 Apr. 2023.
Smith-Spark, Laura. “Theresa May Proposes to Delay Brexit Impact with 2-Year Transition Period.” CNN, 22 Sept. 2017, www.cnn.com/2017/09/21/europe/uk-may-brexit-speech-florence/index.html. Accessed 20 Apr. 2023.
Stamp, Gavin. “Who Is Theresa May: A Profile of UK’s New Prime Minister.” BBC News, 25 July 2016, www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-36660372. Accessed 20 Apr. 2023.
“Theresa May: Member of Parliament for Maidenhead.” Theresa May, 2023, www.tmay.co.uk. Accessed 20 Apr. 2023.
“Who Is Theresa May? A Profile of Britain’s Prime Minister.” The Telegraph, 9 June 2017, www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/theresa-may-profile-britains-prime-minister. Accessed 20 Apr. 2023.