Top among them are British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt and former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson.
The top contenders to replace outgoing British Prime Minister Theresa May who resigned on Friday are viewed as pro-Israeli friends of the Jews and are likely to continue the strong ties between the Jewish Sate and Great Britain. Top among them are British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt and former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson.
In an emotional address on Friday, Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May announced her resignation. The Conservative leader’s departure ends a dramatic three-year tenure of near-constant crisis over Brexit and increases the likelihood of the country crashing out of the European Union later this year.
May, who became prime minister in the aftermath of the 2016 Brexit referendum, was forced to leave after a Conservative mutiny over her ill-fated plan to end Britain’s near five-decade membership of the EU. “It is and will always remain a matter of deep regret to me that I have not been able to deliver Brexit,” said May, her voice breaking and close to tears, outside her Downing Street office.
“It will be for my successor to seek a way forward that honours the result of the referendum.“I will shortly leave the job that it has been the honor 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,” she said, bursting into tears as she left the lectern and walked back into Number 10.
Back to our story on Boris Johnson, when the German parliament approved a motion earlier this month equating the Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment movement with antisemitic, Hunt tweeted his support for the gesture. “Tremors, turbulence & terror in Mid East remind us of urgent need for peace: two-state solution. But the foundations for peace are respect & coexistence. Boycotting Israel — the world’s only Jewish state — is antisemitic. I salute Germany for taking stand," Hunt wrote.
Johnson, a Conservative lawmaker is favorite to replace May. When he was the London Mayor in 2015, he visited Israel and stopped to pray at the Western Wall.
Speaking at a conference in Switzerland, Johnson spoke in support of May, who he said had been "patient and stoical" in facing all the difficulties around the country's departure from the bloc. She tried and failed three times to get a deeply divided British parliament to ratify her divorce deal.
"The job of our next leader in the UK, he or she, is to get out of the EU properly and put Brexit to bed," Johnson said."And to make sure we have an exciting, dynamic, but also socially compassionate conservatism that can see off Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party," he said, referring to the main opposition party.
He declined to give further details of his own leadership campaign, in which he will face rivals including Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt and probably former Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab, the ex-Leader of the House of Commons Andrea Leadsom and several others.
"I don't wish to elaborate on what I'm going to do and how we are going to do it, but believe me you will hear possibly more about that than you necessarily want to in the next few days," Johnson said.
