Theresa May to step down as MP

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Former UK prime minister Theresa May has become the latest Conservative MP to announce they will step down in the coming general election.

May, who served as premier for three years between 2016 and 2019, told her local newspaper the Maidenhead Advertiser on Friday she had taken the decision to leave parliament to “champion causes close to my heart”, including combating modern slavery.

She said her duties outside parliament were taking up an “increasing amount of my time” and because of this she would no longer be able to serve constituents. “I have therefore taken the difficult decision to stand down at the next general election,” she added.

The MP for Maidenhead, May succeeded David Cameron as prime minister in the wake of the 2016 Brexit referendum and her time in office was consumed by the struggle to pass a deal with the EU.

In a snap general election in 2017, she lost her majority and was forced to make a deal with Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party to remain in office.

May resigned in 2019 having put a proposed Brexit deal to the House of Commons only for it to be defeated three times, initially by the biggest majority against a government in history, as eurosceptics, Remainers and Labour united against her plan. She was succeeded by Boris Johnson.

From the backbenches, she has acted as a critical voice of successive Conservative governments and voiced concerns over the party’s credibility in the wake of the shortlived Truss premiership in 2022, warning the Tories had a duty to provide “sensible, competent government”. 

First elected in 1997, May served as chair of the Conservative party in the early 2000s and later as home secretary in Cameron’s government.

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She holds her seat in the south-east of England with a majority of 18,846, and is the 60th Conservative MP to announce they will be bowing out of politics at the general election expected this year. The Tories currently poll well behind the opposition Labour party.

Former chancellors Kwasi Kwarteng and Sajid Javid, deputy prime minister Dominic Raab, ex-health secretary Matt Hancock and former defence secretary Ben Wallace have also said they will stand down. 

After leaving office May established the Global Commission on Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking, a research initiative, with funding from the UK and Bahrain governments. 

May earned about £407,000 from public speaking engagements last year, according to her register of interests. She personally received £85,000 and the remainder was paid into her private office that manages her charitable work and public life.