Theresa May becomes Britain's new PM, appoints Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary

London: Theresa May replaced David Cameron as Britain's prime minister on Wednesday, assuming responsibility for the monumental task of negotiating a complex divorce from the European Union.

Mr Cameron stepped down after Britons rejected his entreaties and voted to leave the EU in a referendum last month, severely undermining European efforts to forge greater unity and creating economic uncertainty across the 28-nation bloc.

Mrs May, 59 assumed office after an audience with Queen Elizabeth. An official photograph showed her curtseying and shaking hands with the smiling monarch, for whom she is the 13th prime minister in a line that started with Winston Churchill.

In her first appointment after taking office, she named former Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond as the country's finance minister on Wednesday. Not long after, it was announced Former London mayor and head of the Leave campaign, Boris Johnson, would become Foreign Secretary


George Osborne, who had served as finance minister since 2010 and was a close ally of Mrs May's predecessor, Mr Cameron, resigned from the government, the prime minister's office said in a statement.


Managing Brexit

She must try to limit the damage to British trade and investment as she renegotiates the country's ties with its 27 EU partners. She will also attempt to unite a divided ruling Conservative party and a fractured nation in which many, on the evidence of the vote, feel angry with the political elite and left behind by the forces of globalisation.

EU leaders, keen to move forward after the shock of 'Brexit', want May to launch formal divorce proceedings as soon as possible to help resolve the uncertainty. But she has said the process should not be launched before the end of year, to give time for Britain to draw up its negotiating strategy.

Although she favoured Britain remaining in Europe, Mrs May has repeatedly declared that "Brexit means Brexit" and that there can be no attempt to reverse the referendum outcome.

The shock vote partly reflected discontent with EU rules on freedom of movement that have contributed to record-high immigration - an issue on which Mrs May, as interior minister for the past six years, is politically vulnerable.


Theresa May arrives with her husband Philip May at Buckingham Palace. Photo: AP

But EU leaders have made clear that free movement is a fundamental principle that goes hand-in-hand with access to the bloc's tariff-free single market, a stance that will hugely complicate May's task in hammering out new terms of trade.

"My advice to my successor, who is a brilliant negotiator, is that we should try to be as close to the European Union as we can be for the benefits of trade, cooperation and of security," Mr Cameron told parliament in his last appearance before resigning.

Appearing later in Downing Street with his wife Samantha and their three children, he delivered his parting remarks to the nation after six years dominated by the Europe question and the aftermath of the global financial crisis.

"It's not been an easy journey and of course we've not got every decision right," he said, "but I do believe that today our country is much stronger." Read more from smh..