May's Successor Likely To Suffer Her Fate If Fails To Deliver On Brexit - Welsh Lawmaker

LONDON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 20th June, 2019) The most important task for the next UK prime minister will be to ensure the country's withdrawal from the European Union and if outgoing Prime Minister Theresa May's successor fails to do so, he will likely suffer the same fate as her, Neil Hamilton, a member of the National Assembly for Wales, told Sputnik after the third round of voting in the Tory leadership race.

Former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson got 143 votes in Wednesday's third round and came first, while incumbent Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt is in second place with 54 votes, Secretary of State for Environment Michael Gove comes third with 51 votes, and Home Secretary Sajid Javid is fourth with 38.

"What matters here is that we deliver Brexit. That's the key issue, that the vote of the British people is not just respected but actually delivered. That's the only issue in this election, and all the other issues that other candidates have raised are irrelevant; the only task that the winner of this contest has really got is to deliver on Brexit by the end of October and if Boris doesn't do that he's going to end up in the same place as Theresa May," Hamilton said.

The Welsh Assembly member went on to say that too much time had already been wasted, with the time period since May triggered Article 50 in March 2017 having been largely taken up discussing other matters not immediately linked to the question of future trade relations between London and Brussels.

The lawmaker argued that such a failure to prioritize had led to a "catastrophe," one that May's successor would be obliged to resolve in a speedy fashion.

"May's greatest mistake was in agreeing to the EU demand that we should try to sort out issues of citizenships and the Northern Irish border before even sitting down and talking about future trade agreements. She should have said, at that point, 'Ok, then we have nothing to discuss, so let's prepare for a no deal Brexit.' That's what the two year period of negotiations was supposed to be about, as in negotiating a future trade relationship with the EU. She didn't use that time period for that at all and the result has been catastrophe," Hamilton stressed.

Meanwhile, former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson's dramatic ascent to what now seems likely to be the position of the head of the UK government continued on Wednesday evening. International Development Secretary Rory Stewart was knocked from the race, having secured just 27 votes in his favor, despite some optimistic predictions from admirers inside and outside the Conservative Party.

The remaining candidates, currently consisting of Johnson himself alongside Hunt, Environment Secretary Michael Gove and Home Secretary Sajid Javid, will face two more rounds of voting before the end of the week, with the Conservative party's 160,000 members then voting on their preference from the final two candidates.

Brexit has served to dominate much of the debate so far, with Johnson's position of taking the United Kingdom out of the European Union by October 31 with or without a deal striking a chord with stalwart euroskeptics.

Johnson has also won the support of previous critics. Former Brexit Minister Dominic Raab was knocked out of the leadership race on Tuesday, coming in just three votes short of the 33 required to pass to the third stage of the contest. The former Brexit minister has, however, now thrown his weight behind Johnson's campaign, claiming he was now the preferred candidate to secure an effective Brexit.