Could UK PM Theresa May resign as early as next month?

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UK Prime Minister Theresa May would resign if she loses the next parliamentary vote on her Brexit plan in the first week of June, BBC reported on Thursday, citing "sources."

May promised to set a timetable to choose her successor after the vote following her meeting with senior Tory MPs who are demanding a date for her resignation, according to the report.

May's Brexit plan has already been rejected three times in the UK Parliament.

British Prime Minister Theresa May (L2) speaks in the UK Parliament in London, May 15, 2019. /VCG Photo

Meanwhile, Boris Johnson, the face of the campaign for Britain to leave the European Union, said on Thursday he will be standing as a candidate to replace May as Conservative leader.

"I am going for it, of course, I am going for it," Johnson told the BBC. "I don't think that is any particular secret to anybody."

The winner of the leadership contest will automatically become prime minister and will take control of the Brexit process, which has plunged Britain into its worst political crisis since World War Two.

Boris Johnson delivers a speech at JCB World Headquarters in Rocester, Staffordshire, UK, January 18, 2019. /VCG Photo

Johnson was widely expected to run for the Conservative leadership in the aftermath of the Brexit vote in 2016, but his campaign collapsed before he announced he was standing when an ally withdrew support amid claims he could not unite the party.

Two weeks later he was made foreign minister but resigned from the cabinet last July in protest at May's handling of the exit negotiations.

Johnson, the former mayor of London, has been one of May's most outspoken critics over Brexit and supports leaving the EU without a deal, a scenario the government's own economic forecasts have warned would leave the British economy eight percent smaller by 2035.

(With inputs from Reuters)

(Cover: Then Britain's foreign secretary Boris Johnson (L) greets U.S. President Donald Trump (R) near Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May (C) during a NATO summit in Brussels, Belgium, May 25, 2017. /VCG Photo)

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