May loses gamble, puts together coalition govt
Defiant May to stay despite blow, meets the Queen ‘Queen of denial’ screams Evening Standard
London, June 9: A defiant Prime Minister Theresa May vowed Friday to form a new government to lead Britain out of the EU despite losing her majority in a snap general election and facing calls to resign.
“What the country needs more than ever is certainty,” Ms May said after the shock outcome of Thursday’s vote.
Britain’s snap general election resulted in a hung Parliament in a major blow to Ms May who wanted to boost the Conservatives’ majority in Parliament to strengthen her hand in the looming Brexit negotiations.
Her gamble backfired spectacularly.
Although winning the most seats, her centreright party lost its majority in Parliament.
The Tories needed 326 seats to win another majority but, with 649 out of the 650 seats declared, they fell short and must rely on Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to continue to rule.
Sterling plunged against the dollar and the euro on Friday as the election result created even more uncertainty over the whole Brexit process.
But Ms May vowed to “fulfil the promise of Brexit”, in a statement outside her Downing Street office after seeking permission from the head of state Queen Elizabeth II to form a new government.
“It is clear that only the Conservative and Unionist Party has the legitimacy and ability to provide that,” she said.
“This will allow us to come together as a country and channel our energies towards a successful Brexit deal.”
Ms May made no reference to her party’s damaging losses, leading the Evening Standard, edited by former Tory finance minister George Osborne, to splash the front-page headline “Queen of Denial”.
EU President Donald Tusk urged Britain not to delay the talks, due to start on June 19, warning that time was running out to reach a divorce deal to end four decades of membership. “We don’t know when Brexit talks start. We know when they must end...,” Mr Tusk tweeted.
Leftist Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn, whose Labour party surged from 20 points behind in the opinion polls, told Ms May to quit, saying she had “lost votes, lost support and lost confidence”.
What the country needs more than ever is certainty... — Theresa May, British PM
Brussels, June 9: European Union leaders fear Prime Minister Theresa May’s shock loss of her majority in the snap British election will delay Brexit talks, due to start this month, and so raise the risk of negotiations failing.
“We don’t know when Brexit talks start. We know when they must end,” tweeted Donald Tusk, the EU summit chair overseeing negotiations that the EU had planned to start on June 19.
His reference to the March 2019 deadline when Britain will be out of the European Union with or without an agreed deal to avoid legal limbo for people and businesses reflected mounting concern that British chaos could further disrupt all of Europe.
“Do your best to avoid a ‘no deal’ as result of ‘no negotiations’,” Mr Tusk said, calling for urgency to avert the risk that, having bound Britain in March to a two-year countdown to Brexit, Ms May’s failed electoral gamble could waste further time.
Back in the UK, observers said a surge in youth turnout fuelled by shock Brexit vote played a pivotal role in stripping Ms May of her parliamentary majority.
An energising campaign by Labour’s firebrand leader Jeremy Corbyn and simmering anger among many voters over uncertain plans to leave the European Union sent young Britons streaming to the ballot box.
Some 56 per cent of under-35s voted, according to an exit poll for NME magazine, which recently splashed Mr Corbyn’s face across its cover.
They showed overwhelming support for Labour, at 60 percent, with 36 per cent of them being first-time voters, according to the survey among 1,354 voters.
Half cited Brexit as the “main factor” in their decision to cast a ballot.
The result sent shock wave across Europe. Guenther Oettinger, the German member of the EU executive, warned that a weak British leadership was a problem for the Union. “We need a government that can act,” he told the Deutschlandfunk radio station. “With a weak negotiating partner, there’s the danger that the negotiations will turn out badly.”
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, told a German paper, “It’s up to the British to make the next move ... We’ve been ready to negotiate for months.”
Mr Juncker’s Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier made clear talks could only now start once Britain has a team in place: “Brexit negotiations should start when UK is ready,” he tweeted.
“Timetable and EU positions are clear. Let’s put our minds together on striking a deal.”
French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe was quick to scotch any suggestion that Britain might do a U-turn and ask to stay in the EU — something that would need EU agreement. Few Europeans voiced much sympathy for Ms May. Some compared her to her predecessor David Cam-eron.
“Yet another own goal, after Cameron now May, will make already complex negotiations even more complicated,” tweeted Guy Verhofstadt, the liberal former Belgian premier who is the European Parliament’s point man for the Brexit process.