Theresa May

LONDON — Outgoing Prime Minister David Cameron urged his successor Theresa May on Wednesday to keep Britain close to the European Union, even as she embarks on the monumental task of ending four decades of membership.

Cameron is stepping down after Britons rejected his entreaties and voted to leave the EU in a referendum last month, severely undermining European efforts to forge greater unity and creating economic uncertainty across the 28-nation bloc.

“My advice to my successor, who is a brilliant negotiator, is that we should try to be as close to the European Union as we can be for the benefits of trade, cooperation and of security,” he told parliament in his last appearance before resigning.

“The Channel will not get any wider once we leave the European Union, and that is the relationship we should seek.”

May, 59, must try to limit the damage to British trade and investment as she renegotiates the country’s ties with its 27 EU partners. She must also attempt to unite a divided ruling Conservative party and a fractured nation in which many, on the evidence of the vote, feel angry with the political elite and left behind by the forces of globalization.

Despite the serious backdrop, there was an atmosphere of hilarity in parliament as Cameron traded humorous jabs with beleaguered opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

“This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. Other than one meeting this afternoon with Her Majesty the Queen, the diary for the rest of my day is remarkably light,” Cameron said to laughter in a packed House of Commons.

May will pay her own visit to the monarch to be formally entrusted with the job, before entering 10 Downing Street to become Britain’s second woman prime minister after Margaret Thatcher.

Cameron said the government was working hard to ensure that an estimated 3 million EU citizens can stay in Britain, but this would depend on reciprocal rights for Britons in Europe.

He took the opportunity to trumpet his government’s achievements in generating one of the fastest growth rates among western economies, chopping the budget deficit, creating 2.5 million jobs and legalizing gay marriage.

Yet his legacy will be overshadowed by his failed referendum gamble, which he had hoped would keep Britain at the heart of a reformed EU.

May, who has been interior minister for six years, is seen by her supporters as a safe pair of hands to steer the country through the disruptive Brexit process.

“I think around the cabinet table yesterday the feeling was that we have our Angela Merkel,” said Jeremy Hunt, health secretary in Cameron’s team which met for the last time on Tuesday.

“We have an incredibly tough, shrewd, determined and principled person to lead those negotiations for Britain,” Hunt told Sky News television.

German Chancellor Merkel will be May’s most important counterpart on the continent as the process unfolds. Both women are renowned for their firmness, pragmatism and discipline.

The new British leader is expected to immediately start putting together a new cabinet, a complex political balancing act in which she will try to satisfy opposing camps in her party.

Before the referendum, May had campaigned for Britain to remain in the EU, albeit in a low-key fashion. Since the vote, she has repeatedly said that “Brexit means Brexit” and her backers say she is determined to make the exit a success.