Theresa May has officially resigned as leader of the Conservatives.
Mrs May will remain as Prime Minister and as acting leader of her party until her successor is named.
A statement issued by the Tory backbench 1922 Committee said: “Following notification from the Prime Minister, Rt Hon Theresa May MP, that she has resigned as leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party, the joint acting chairs of the 1922 Committee are inviting nominations from those Conservative Members of Parliament who wish to stand for election as the next party leader.
“Nominations close at 5pm on Monday June 10. The list of candidates, together with their proposer and seconder, will be made publicly available after the close of nominations.
“The Rt Hon Theresa May will remain as acting leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party until her successor has been announced.”
After months and months and months, and various attempts to oust Theresa May it is now, officially for her as leader of her party, over – a whimper of a huge moment pic.twitter.com/ncthYI3DpQ
— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) June 7, 2019
The resignation allows the formal process of selecting a new party leader to begin.
Interested parties have until 5pm on Monday to apply for the job. 11 candidates have announced their intention to stand in the contest, including Boris Johnson, Dominic Raab, Sajid Javid and Rory Stewart.
Candidates from the 313 Conservative MPs will require a proposer, a seconder and six other MPs to support their candidacy to continue to the first ballot.
The 1922 Committee will oversee the hustings and balloting of Conservative MPs to whittle the field of candidates down to a final two.
They will go to hustings around the country to convince Conservative Party members to vote for them in the final ballot.
Candidates will start being eliminated from the race on Thursday June 13 following a first ballot.
A second ballot will be held the following Tuesday and a third the day after.
Fourth and fifth ballots will take place on June 20 until two candidates remain.
A new leader will eventually be announced following a ballot of about 160,000 Conservative members on the week commencing July 22.
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