Theresa May

Biography

Theresa Mary Brasier was born in Eastbourne in 1956, the only child of a Church of England clergyman, and grew up in Oxfordshire. She read geography at St Hugh's College, Oxford, graduating in 1977, then worked at the Bank of England until 1983 and afterwards for the Association for Payment Clearing Services. From 1986 to 1994 she was a Conservative councillor in the London Borough of Merton.

After two unsuccessful attempts she was elected MP for Maidenhead in 1997. She joined the Shadow Cabinet in 1999 and in 2002 became the first woman to chair the Conservative Party, telling its conference that voters saw it as 'the nasty party'. Appointed Home Secretary in 2010, she held the post for six years, longer than anyone in over sixty years, reforming policing, tightening immigration rules and securing the deportation of Abu Qatada.

Although she had backed Remain in the 2016 referendum, she succeeded David Cameron as Conservative leader and prime minister in July 2016 and set out to deliver Brexit, triggering Article 50 in March 2017. The snap election she called that June cost the Conservatives their majority, leaving her dependent on the Democratic Unionist Party. Her withdrawal agreement was voted down three times in the Commons; she survived confidence votes in December 2018 and January 2019 but resigned as party leader in June 2019 and left office in July. She stayed on as a backbench MP until 2024 and then entered the House of Lords as Baroness May of Maidenhead.