Nigel Farage, the leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party, speaks at a news conference in London July 4. (Neil Hall/Reuters)
LONDON — Right-wing firebrand and populist politician Nigel Farage resigned as leader of his U.K. Independence Party on Monday morning, the latest political bombshell to hit the nation as it grapples with fallout from last month’s vote to leave the European Union.
“I have never wanted to be a career politician. That is why I now feel that I’ve done my bit,” Farage, who helped spearhead the campaign to leave the E.U., said Monday in atelevised press conference.
“I will watch the renegotiation process in Brussels like a hawk,” he said of expected talks between British and E.U. leaders in the coming months. But, Farage said, “I want my life back.”
Also on Monday, energy minister and parliamentarian Andrea Leadsom, announced her intention to run for the leadership of the ruling Conservative Party — and, by extension prime minister. The party has been thrown into disarray in the wake of the E.U. referendum held June 23.
Prime Minister David Cameron, the current Conservative Party leader, announced his resignation the morning after the vote, after having backed the campaign for Britain to remain a member of the European Union.
The decision by British voters to leave the 28-member bloc, built through a series of treaties in the wake of World War II, shocked nations around the globe and plunged Britain into political and economic uncertainty.
The British pound fell about 10 percent against the U.S. dollar, and economists have warned of a global recession if the turmoil continues. On Monday, Britain’s chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne, told the Financial Times that he planned to cut the country’s corporate tax rate to just 15 percent — the lowest of any major economy.
Leadsom also emphasized economic issues.
“Business needs certainty,” Leadsom, who has emerged as one of three front-runner candidates, said Monday. “I will prioritize new trade deals with the fastest growing parts of the world.”
In her speech announcing her leadership bid, Leadsom said British citizens have “just rediscovered our freedom.”
“The U.K. will leave the European Union,” she said. “Freedom of movement will end.”
Farage and UKIP, too, had taken a hard line against immigration and the freedom of movement that comes with E.U. membership. Much of the “leave” campaign, popularly known as Brexit, focused on calls for stricter border controls and full withdrawal of Britain from Europe’s common market.
In his resignation speech Monday, Farage called the European Union’s single market — which refers to the bloc as one territory without regulations on goods and services — a “big business protectionist cartel.”
“We need a new prime minister that puts down some pretty clear lines — that we’re not going to give in on issues like free movement,” he said.
“We are now in charge of our own future, and I want us to grab this opportunity with both hands,” he added.
But for all of the talk of victory, nearly all of the leaders of the “leave” movement have either stepped back from high-level politics or have been sidelined in the post-referendum political wars.
The vote has divided the Conservative Party and prompted a similar leadership crisis in the Labour Party, where members of Parliament voted to oust Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. He has since refused to resign.
Before Farage’s departure Monday, former London mayor and pro-Brexit campaigner Boris Johnson announced that he would remove himself from the race for leader of the Conservative Party. He previously was the favorite to take the keys to No. 10 Downing Street.
His pronouncement came last week, just hours after his fellow campaigner and supposed ally Michael Gove declared his own candidacy and announced that he thought Johnson was unfit for the premiership.
The move by Gove, a Conservative politician, shocked Britain, and drew comparisons to Shakespearean-style treachery or an episode of the political drama “House of Cards.”
In the meantime, Gove’s popularity has plummeted. Home Secretary Theresa May has emerged as a front-runner for leader of the party.
May campaigned for Britain to remain in the European Union, but she has presented herself as a unifying figure within the party. She has promised to reform the bloc’s rules of freedom of movement, but she has stopped short of promising a full halt to migration to Britain.
May has about 100 members of Parliament backing her leadership bid, while Gove and Leadsom each have roughly 20, according to the right-wing Conservative Home website.
The first round of voting for the Conservative leadership begins Tuesday, and it will eliminate the fifth of five candidates for the job.
