The final choice for who will be our next Prime Minster must be between Theresa May and Michael Gove
Andrea Leadsom deserves to be thanked for her spirited EU campaign, but she is too untested for the top job
THE final choice for our next Prime Minister must be between Theresa May and Michael Gove. No one else will do.
May has huge support among Tory MPs, as the first round of voting proved.
But on June 23, 17million-plus people voted for Brexit by a decent majority. A Leave candidate must be in the last two — and of those left only Gove could credibly be our PM.
We salute Andrea Leadsom’s spirited campaigning to leave the EU and the substantial support she has. But the Energy Minister is entirely untested at the highest level. We know too little about her and what she really believes.
Even those who voted for her yesterday cannot be entirely confident she is the leader Britain needs at this pivotal moment in our history.
Her pro-Brexit MPs may baulk at switching to Gove after his perceived betrayal of Boris Johnson. But we believe he did that from the genuine conviction that Boris would have been bad for Britain as PM.
Even though ex-candidates Liam Fox and Stephen Crabb are now backing Ms May, their supporters should switch to Gove and put him in the final two.
He is a principled, brave politician without whom we would not be leaving the EU. His track record in Cabinet as Education Secretary and Justice Secretary shows him to be a man of great intelligence and reforming zeal.
He is a heavyweight politician capable of leading the world’s fifth largest economy. No one can surely say that yet of Leadsom. She would be a huge gamble.
Home Secretary Ms May is a formidable candidate too. She has insisted “Brexit means Brexit” and fair enough. We don’t doubt she means it. But it must not be forgotten she backed Remain.
And while she styles herself as a safe pair of hands, is that good enough?
Shouldn’t Britain be more ambitious, especially after the vote to leave?
That should be the choice: two big beasts with contrasting styles, ideas . . . and views on Brexit.
It MUST be those two.
Brexit bashers
WHEN will europhiles give up trying to reverse the referendum result? They’re like flies on a window.
Sir Richard Branson reckons the massive Leave vote, the biggest in British history, was somehow too small to justify Brexit and wants a rerun.
Give it up, Richard. Try to imagine what Britain could now achieve.
The EU has less than seven per cent of the world’s population and just 16.5 per cent of the wealth, a figure falling fast.
Britain, free of the Brussels tariff club, will trade with the big world outside it. That’s nearly seven billion people.
RELATED STORIES
Investment is likely to pour in as corporation tax is slashed to 15 per cent or less. Yet doom-mongering “experts” and bitter old politicians who backed Remain still only talk up the negatives.
Will they never stop?