Theresa May Welcomes Boris Johnson, Chokes Up in Final PMQs (Full)

Prime Minister Theresa May says she’s glad her successor, Boris Johnson, is committed to “delivering on the vote of the people in 2016” to leave the European Union.

May offered muted praise of the incoming leader in her last Prime Minister’s Questions session in the House of Commons. She said she was pleased to be handing power to another Conservative leader.

After Wednesday’s question period, May will travel to Buckingham Palace and submit her resignation to Queen Elizabeth II. Johnson, who won a contest to replace her as Conservative leader, will become prime minister later in the day.

May said she would “continue my duties in this House from the back benches” as an ordinary lawmaker.

May shook her head at a suggestion from Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn that she join opposition attempts to stop the “reckless” Johnson, who has vowed to take Britain out of the EU with or without a divorce deal.

The European Parliament is warning new Boris Johnson, who in a few hours is set to become British prime minister, not to count on any renegotiation of the Brexit deal that his predecessor Theresa May negotiated with the EU.

The legislature’s Brexit steering group said in a statement that the statements made by Johnson during his campaign to lead the Conservative Party “have greatly increased the risk of a disorderly exit of the UK.”

It adds that a no-deal exit would be “economically very damaging, even if such damage would not be inflicted equally on both parties.”

The group, including the top Brexit legislators, held talks in a conference call the day after Johnson won the race to succeed May, who is due to quit as prime minister in the next couple of hours.

Johnson has said he would take the UK out of the EU on the Brexit departure date of Oct. 31 “come what may.”

Incoming British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is assembling his top team, with a key job set to go to a controversial figure from the country’s Brexit referendum campaign.

Johnson’s allies say Dominic Cummings, director of the “Vote Leave” campaign in the 2016 referendum, will become a senior adviser to the prime minister.

Cummings has been both praised and criticized for his work as the campaign’s lead strategist. Lawmakers and electoral officials have investigated Vote Leave’s links to the firm Cambridge Analytica, which harvested Facebook users’ data to help political campaigns.

Cummings — who was played by Benedict Cumberbatch in the TV drama “Brexit: The Uncivil War” — was found to be in contempt of Parliament earlier this year for refusing to give evidence to a committee of lawmakers investigating “fake news.”

Boris Johnson is set to form a “cabinet for modern Britain” as he prepares to become prime minister following his victory in an election to lead the governing Conservatives.

The incoming leader has just over three months to make good on his promise to lead the U.K. out of the European Union by Oct. 31.

Johnson easily defeated Conservative rival Jeremy Hunt, winning two-thirds of the votes of about 160,000 party members across the U.K. He becomes prime minister once Queen Elizabeth II formally asks him to form a government.

He will replace Theresa May, who announced her resignation last month after Parliament repeatedly rejected the withdrawal agreement she struck with the 28-nation bloc.

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