Britain’s interior minister Theresa May and Brexit campaigning MP Andrea Leadsom will battle it out to replace Prime Minister David Cameron, who quit following the country’s historic vote to leave the European Union (EU).
They were on different sides of the referendum campaign but both candidates have promised no backtracking on Britain’s withdrawal from the bloc.
They differ, though, on when and how negotiations with Brussels should take place.
The incoming prime minister, to be announced on September 9, will be responsible for invoking Article 50—the formal procedure for leaving the bloc that sets a deadline of two years for negotiations.
Based on what May and Leadsom have said, here are their stances on key policy issues:
May, who backed the “Remain” camp in the referendum, has said: “Brexit means Brexit.”
But she added: “There should be no decision to invoke Article 50 before the British negotiating strategy is agreed and clear, which means Article 50 should not be invoked until the end of this year.”
Brexit champion Leadsom has said she wants to trigger Article 50 and complete exit negotiations “as quickly as possible” but has not given a timetline.
“We need to get on with it, we need to seize the opportunity,” she told the BBC.
May said that voters had sent a clear message that freedom of movement of people “could not continue as it had” and that immigration controls would have to be included in any deal to access the EU’s single market.
“We need need to bring control into movement of people coming into the UK from the EU,” she said.
She has also warned that migrant numbers could rise ahead of Britain’s EU withdrawal saying: “We may very well see in the run-up to that, people wanting to come here to the UK before that exit happens.”
Leadsom has promised a hard line, saying “freedom of movement will end, and the British parliament will decide how many people enter our country each year.”
May has refused to guarantee that EU nationals already in Britain would be allowed to stay following Brexit, saying only that “as part of the negotiation we will need to look at this question”.
Leadsom accused May of using the EU nationals as “bargaining chips,” and said they would be able to stay.
“I commit to immediately guaranteeing the rights of our EU friends who have already come here to live and work.”
The winner will be decided by rank-and-file party members, for whom certain social issues provide a yardstick of a candidate’s conservatism.
May voted in favour of same-sex marriage in 2013, whereas Leadsom abstained and said this week she would have preferred “for marriage to have remained as a Christian service for men and women.”
Leadsom has also struck a conservative tone on fox hunting, saying she would reintroduce the controversial sport. May has also consistently voted against a ban on the practice.
“I would absolutely commit to holding a vote to repeal the hunting ban, I think it’s not proven to be in the interests of animal welfare whatsoever,” Leadsom said.
Becoming only the second female British prime minster after fellow Conservative Margaret Thatcher, both have drawn inevitable comparisons to the “Iron Lady.”
Leadsom built her career in finance in the wake of Thatcher’s free-market reforms, and the leadership hopeful has called the former prime minister her political heroine.
“As a person, she was always kind and courteous, and as a leader she was steely and determined,” she said Leadsom.
May has avoided Thatcher comparisons, but her Conservative colleagues have noted similarities in style.
“Theresa is a bloody difficult woman, but you and I worked with Margaret Thatcher,” party grandee Kenneth Clarke told fellow Tory Malcolm Rifkind in an unguarded conversation caught by Sky News.