Wounded May soldiers onward
LONDON — Spectacularly punished by voters who took away her majority in Parliament, a politically wounded but defiant Theresa May soldiered on Friday as Britain’s prime minister, resisting pressure to resign.
Having called an early election in hopes of getting an increased majority that could have strengthened her hand in Britain’s exit talks with the EU, May instead saw her majority evaporate — leaving her fortunes hanging by a thread and dark clouds over the Brexit negotiations just 10 days before they are due to start.
She insisted that she would stick to the Brexit timetable. But she was forced into an alliance with a small party in Northern Ireland just to stay in power. Grim-faced, May said her Conservatives and the Democratic Unionist Party would work together to “provide certainty and lead Britain forward at this critical time.”
“This government will guide the country through the crucial Brexit talks ... and deliver on the will of the British people by taking the United Kingdom out of the European Union,” she said after seeking Queen Elizabeth’s approval — a formality — for the new, hastily cobbledtogether arrangement.
The election shock is “yet another own goal” that will make “already complex negotiations even more complicated,” said the European Parliament’s top Brexit official, Guy Verhofstadt.
With 649 of 650 seats in the House of Commons declared, May’s bruised Conservatives had 318 — short of the 326 they needed for an outright majority and well down from the 330 seats they had before the election.
In May’s camp, recriminations were immediate and stinging.
“This is a very bad moment for the Conservative Party, and we need to take stock,” Conservative lawmaker Anna Soubry said. “Our leader needs to take stock as well.”
The biggest winner was Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. Labour’s increase in seats from 229 to 261 — with one seat still undecided — confounded expectations that his left-wing views made him electorally toxic.
In a buoyant mood, Corbyn piled on pressure for May to resign, saying Friday morning that people have had enough of austerity politics and cuts in public spending. He ruled out the potential for deals or pacts with other progressive parties in Parliament.