Theresa May’s Vow to Resign Doesn’t Yield Brexit Breakthrough

Gambit sought to get Conservative hard-liners to back her exit deal with assurances that someone else would lead future EU talks; some backers balk.

U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May pledged Wednesday to quit in a bid to salvage her beleaguered plan to leave the European Union, confirming her lame-duck status and setting off a period of intense politicking among her potential successors.

Mrs. May’s gesture of self-sacrifice quickly appeared to backfire as her political ally, Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, said it would continue to reject her deal, likely condemning it to failure.

Adding to the sense of confusion over Brexit, lawmakers failed to find a majority for any alternative Brexit arrangement to Mrs. May’s deal, but overwhelmingly agreed that they opposed leaving the bloc without one.

The votes showed the difficulty of breaking the Brexit deadlock in Parliament, but appeared to indicate a preference for maintaining closer ties to the bloc than Mrs. May has envisioned.

Before Parliament voted, Mrs. May told a private meeting of her own Conservative Party lawmakers on Wednesday that she would begin a process of handing over her office to a successor if her deal is finally ratified by lawmakers. While she hopes to hold that vote on Friday, she didn’t lay out a timetable for a resignation.

“I have heard very clearly the mood of the parliamentary party,” Mrs. May told lawmakers in the meeting. “I know there is a desire for a new approach—and new leadership—in the second phase of the Brexit negotiations, and I won’t stand in the way of that.”

“I am prepared to leave this job earlier than I intended in order to do what is right for our country and our party,” she added.

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