Ex-PM Theresa May to stand down as Member of Parliament at general election

Former prime minister cites causes that she has championed as a backbencher as the reason for her departure

Theresa May has announced she will stand down as an MP at the next general election.
The former prime minister, 67, who led the country between 2016 and 2019, said she had taken the “difficult decision” to step down from her position after 27 years representing the constituency of Maidenhead.
Her decision takes the number of Tory MPs to announce they are quitting at the next general election to 60, more than at any point since Labour’s landslide victory in 1997, as the Conservatives continue to trail the official opposition by around 20 points in the polls.
But Mrs May insisted she believed Rishi Sunak can win the next election and cited causes that she has championed as a backbencher as the reason for her departure.
In a statement first given to the Maidenhead Advertiser, Mrs May said: “It has been an honour and a privilege to serve everyone in the Maidenhead constituency as the Member of Parliament for the last 27 years.
“Being an MP is about service to one’s constituents and I have always done my best to ensure that I respond to the needs of local people and the local area.
“Since stepping down as prime minister, I have enjoyed being a backbencher again and having more time to work for my constituents and champion causes close to my heart including most recently launching a Global Commission on Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking. These causes have been taking an increasing amount of my time.
“Because of this, after much careful thought and consideration, I have realised 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. I have therefore taken the difficult decision to stand down at the next general election.”
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Mrs May succeeded Lord Cameron in No 10 and as the leader of the Conservative Party in July 2016 after the UK voted to leave the European Union.
On the day she became the second female prime minister, she vowed outside Downing Street to “fight burning injustices” and “build a better Britain not just for the privileged few”.
Eight months later, she called a snap general election for June 8, 2017 as she claimed divisions in Westminster and a working Tory majority of just 17 in Parliament risked hampering Brexit negotiations.
But her gamble backfired spectacularly as she lost her majority altogether following a campaign in which she was forced into a dramatic U-turn on the Tories’ controversial plans for social care that were dubbed a “dementia tax” by critics.
Later that year her conference speech was a calamity. A heckler stormed the stage waving a P45 in the year that she lost her majority, while she had a coughing fit towards the end of her remarks and letters fell off the backdrop behind her.
In order to form a government, the Tories were forced to strike a confidence and supply agreement with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) after they were reduced to 317 seats – a decrease of 13 – while Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour picked up an extra 30 seats, leaving it with 262 MPs.
Mrs May endured a number of gaffes, as her personal popularity plummeted throughout her time in Downing Street.
Asked on the eve of the 2017 election what the naughtiest thing she ever did as a child was, Mrs May replied that she used to “run through fields of wheat” and that the local farmers “weren’t too pleased about that”.
She was widely mocked in August 2018 as she bobbed up and down while trying out her dance moves on a visit to a school in Cape Town at the start of a tour of Africa.
In a self-deprecating nod to her dance moves a couple of months later, she danced on to the stage ahead of her Conservative Party Conference speech to laughter and applause from her frontbenchers.
When Mrs May was nicknamed The Maybot by a political sketch writer, the nickname instantly stuck and was said to have been used by junior Tory campaign staff.
Conservative infighting over Brexit plagued the rest of Mrs May’s administration as she struggled to gain support among MPs for her European Union withdrawal agreement.
Boris Johnson quit as Mrs May’s foreign secretary in July 2018 over the position thrashed out at Chequers, hours after David Davis and Steve Baker quit as Brexit secretary and Brexit minister in protest against her stance.
Demands for her resignation swelled among parliamentarians on the Tory Right, including the influential European Research Group of backbenchers, and she faced a confidence vote on Dec 12, 2018.
Mrs May narrowly survived a motion of no confidence in her government that was tabled the following month, before a series of “meaningful votes” in the Commons saw her divorce deal rejected three times.
Her warnings of a choice between leaving the EU with a deal “or not leaving at all” fell on deaf ears, and there were renewed calls for her departure when the Tories won just 8.8 per cent of the vote in the 2019 European elections, which were won by the Brexit Party.
Unable to break the deadlock, Mrs May announced her resignation on May 24, 2019, her voice breaking as she told the nation: “I will shortly leave the job that it has been the honour of my life to hold.
“The second female prime minister, but certainly not the last. I do so with no ill will, but with enormous and enduring gratitude to have had the opportunity to serve the country I love.”
The daughter of a vicar, Mrs May was a Tory councillor in the borough of Merton prior to entering the Commons in 1997.
She served as shadow education secretary, shadow transport secretary and shadow leader of the Commons while the Tories were in opposition and was Lord Cameron’s home secretary between 2010 and 2016.
Eventually becoming the longest serving home secretary for 50 years, she was the architect of the “hostile environment” policy for illegal migration.
Married to Philip May, she has no children and shares a love of cricket with her husband.
She has continued to make a series of high-profile interventions from the back benches in recent years, repeatedly criticising the Rwanda deportation plan as well as taking a swipe at Mr Johnson over partygate.
Mrs May wore a black ball gown to cast a vote on her successor’s leadership when he was subjected to his own no confidence vote in June 2022, while she was seen at the Royal Opera House the following month as Mr Johnson faced a wave of ministerial resignations.