Prime Minister Theresa May has announced she’s resigning.

A resignation is a way of leaving a job. In resigning, Theresa May won’t be the Prime Minister any more.

She made the announcement outside 10 Downing Street on Friday, 25th May. She’ll remain in charge until June 7th, at which point someone else will take over from her.

There’s lots of speculation in the news about why Theresa May might have decided to leave her job.

She said she’s stepping down because she can’t get the people in the House of Commons to support her Brexit Deal – that’s the agreement around what will happen when the UK leaves the European Union.

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It’s something that’s causing a lot of tension at the moment. Whoever takes over from Theresa May will face the same challenges and will have to try and get members of the House of Commons – MPs – to agree.

Theresa May was the leader of the Conservative Party which is the party currently in power.

Whichever party is in power gets to decide who becomes the next Prime Minister.

After Conservative MPs have narrowed it down to two candidates, the Conservative party hold a mini-election that only party members can vote on. The winner will go on to become Prime Minister.

That’s what happened in 2017 when David Cameron resigned and Theresa May was selected.

It doesn’t require members of the public to vote but sometimes the new Prime Minister might call an election to get something called a mandate.

A mandate is when someone is given the authority to do something. In this case, the mandate would be from the British people, giving the Prime Minister more confidence that the country agrees with the things that they want to do.