Prime Minister Theresa May was under intense pressure to name a date for her departure after her final Brexit gambit failed, overshadowing a European election that will show a United Kingdom still riven by divisions over its EU divorce.
With the deadlock in London, the world’s fifth largest economy faces an array of options including an orderly exit with a deal, a no-deal exit, an election or a second referendum.
May, who won the top job in the turmoil which followed the 2016 referendum on EU membership, has repeatedly failed to get parliament’s approval for the divorce deal she pitched as a way to heal the Brexit divisions of the country.
But her last gambit, offering a possible second referendum and closer trading arrangements with the EU, triggered a revolt by some Brexit-supporting ministers. House of Commons leader Andrea Leadsom resigned and the BBC said more ministers could follow.
“I no longer believe that our approach will deliver on the referendum result,” Leadsom, once a challenger to May to become prime minister, said in a resignation letter.
May, who has shown obduracy during one of the most tumultuous premierships of recent British history, had promised to leave office if lawmakers approved her Brexit deal but she is now under intense pressure to name a date.
Sterling, which tumbled on the 2016 Brexit vote to its biggest one-day fall since the early 1970s, was trading on Thursday at $1.26. The yield on the United Kingdom’s 10-year gilt fell to 0.991%, the lowest since March 29, the day Britain had been due to leave the EU.