Lewis Hulatt, South East Consultant with Major Family Law, the best divorce and children law specialists, comments:

Theresa May became our Prime Minister last week – a job that comes from her fellow Conservatives, rather than being the choice of the people.   It is a mandate that is different from that of the President of the United States, who publicly suffers a ‘beauty contest’ to be one of two options for the electorate and then needs to find a way to deal with a Government that may not support his (or her) personal policies.   At least for her the fighting is restricted to which shade of blue is applied to the policies.

What does this mean for family law in the UK?

Avoiding economic calamity, social unrest and harm from terrorists will all rank above establishing a coherent family law regime.  On the liberal side, she voted to permit same-sex marriage, but on the harder side, she favours the erosion of Human Rights.   She would argue that existing interpretation of human rights law endangers the ‘right to life’ of everybody, so easier deportation, more surveillance and a ‘toughening up’ are required.  Again on this she seems a complex person – somebody who correctly identified that the public perception of the Conservatives was as the ‘nasty party’ which needed to be addressed and in an un-Conservative manner got tough on the police for being less trustworthy than she thought right. That shows a sense of realism as well as determination to get change.

I am not much of a student of politics, despite having a tendency of ‘putting the world to rights’, but there is something somewhat Thatcher-like about our new Prime Minister. She has served a long time in Government and expected to be no push-over when discussing terms of Brexit – our looming legal separation from the EU.

However – and this is my final point – when you have a divorce settlement to negotiate – you want somebody who can examine the issues thoroughly, have some flexibility about options and then show determination to get a fair and mutually acceptable outcome.

May she do that?