Moves afoot within Conservative Party to dislodge prime minister

LONDON — British Prime Minister Theresa May was seeking a deal on Sunday with a small Northern Irish party that she needs to stay in power after a disastrous election that destroyed her authority days before Brexit talks are due to start.

British media reported that moves were afoot within May’s Conservative Party to dislodge her, while opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who exceeded expectations in Thursday’s vote, insisted she could be ousted and he could replace her.

“Theresa May is a dead woman walking. It’s just how long she’s going to remain on death row,” former Conservative finance minister George Osborne, who was sacked by May when she became prime minister last year, told the BBC.

The Conservatives won 318 House of Commons seats in the election, eight short of an outright majority. Labour, the main opposition party, won 262.

May’s only hope of forming a government is to win support from Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, which won 10 seats. She is seeking a so-called confidence and supply deal, which would involve the DUP supporting the Conservatives on key votes but not joining a formal coalition.

Her Downing Street office initially announced on Saturday that the “principles of an outline agreement” had been agreed with the DUP, only for the smaller party to contradict that account hours later.

Downing Street backtracked, saying she had “discussed finalizing” a deal in the coming week. DUP leader Arlene Foster told Sky News she would meet May at Downing Street on Tuesday.

The political turmoil comes as Britain is due to start negotiating on June 19 the terms of its exit from the European Union in talks of unprecedented complexity that are supposed to wrap up by the end of March 2019, when Britain actually leaves.

That timeline now looks even more ambitious than before, not least because May’s electoral debacle has emboldened those within her own party who object to her “hard Brexit” approach of leaving the European single market and customs union.

With media asking questions about whether May could remain at Downing Street after her electoral

This is not the time for sharks to be circling. This is the time for us to come together as a party.”

Karen Bradley, British culture minister

humiliation, ministers said now was not the time for the further uncertainty that a party leadership contest would bring.

“This is not the time for sharks to be circling. This is the time for us to come together as a party,” culture minister Karen Bradley told Sky News.

Several newspapers said Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson was being urged by supporters to launch a leadership challenge, but he dismissed the reports as “tripe” in a tweet saying he was backing May.

Meanwhile, a buoyant Corbyn was insisting he saw a route for Labour to form a government, although it was not clear how he would command the support of a majority of members of parliament given the electoral arithmetic.

“I can still be prime minister. This is still on,” Corbyn told the Sunday Mirror newspaper.

A veteran leftist who unexpectedly became Labour leader in 2015 on a wave of grassroots enthusiasm but was seen by most of his own party’s lawmakers as an electoral no-hoper, Corbyn beat expectations with a well-run, policy-rich campaign.

Alastair Campbell, the former Labour Party spin doctor who worked with former prime minister Tony Blair, hit out at the deal, saying May threatened the peace process in Northern Ireland by negotiating a “sordid, dangerous and distasteful” deal with the DUP.

Blair was a participant in the peace formula which brought to an end three decades of troubles between pro-republican and pro-unionist forces in Northern Ireland.