May’s election punt backfires
BRITAIN: Theresa May’s future as Britain’s prime minister was thrown into doubt after her gamble to call an early election backfired spectacularly just 10 days before Brexit negotiations were due to start.
May’s Conservative Party was on course to win 322 seats, the BBC forecast. That’s short of the 326 seats she needs for an overall majority but possibly enough for her to govern without the support of other parties.
Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party will win 261 seats, compared with 229 before the election.
‘‘If the poll is anything like accurate, this is completely catastrophic for the Conservatives and for Theresa May,’’ former Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said.
May called the election expecting to win a landslide victory but the result – even if she scrapes a majority – is a blow to her personal authority.
The results have investors fretting about the prospect of more political turmoil less than a year after Britain voted to leave the European Union.
May’s party, already ill at ease after a gaffe-prone campaign, will now ask how she could throw away the commanding poll lead that she enjoyed at the start of the election campaign.
The projections throw up big questions about Brexit. Talks with European Union leaders are due to start in less than two weeks and those meetings may now need to be delayed, further eroding the time that Britain has to clinch a deal before it leaves the bloc in March 2019.
The initial projections also raise the prospect of Labour’s Corbyn becoming prime minister if he can form a government with support from an array of smaller parties. The SNP were projected to win 32 seats, down from 56 in 2015, and the Liberal Democrats may get 13, up from 8, the exit poll showed.
Trade Secretary Liam Fox was equivocal about May when asked if she has been damaged by the election.
’’We’ll see what happens in terms of the number of seats we have and what happens in terms of the vote share before we make any assumptions. It’s entirely possible that we’ll still get an overall majority.’’
"There's no coalition, there's no deals, either the Conservatives will be the minority government if this exit poll is right, or Labour will be the minority government." Labour foreign-affairs spokeswoman Emily Thornberry
May campaigned for a so-called hard Brexit in which Britain would quit the single market in return for reclaiming power over immigration, laws and money. She also declared herself willing to walk away without an agreement if pushed.
If the Conservatives retain power, the Brexit agenda will likely be set by lawmakers who campaigned for the cleanest break with the EU. That would limit room for May or her successor to make concessions.
On the other hand, a rejuvenated Labour opposition could unite with Liberal Democrats, Scottish Nationalists and pro-eu Tories to soften the government’s approach.
Corbyn wants to stay in the EU’S single market for goods and services, as do the Scottish nationalists. The Liberal Democrats want a second referendum on the final deal that Britain negotiates with the EU.
‘‘The exit poll seems to indicate that no party will have an overall majority and it’s possible we could form the next government,’’ Labour foreign affairs spokeswoman, Emily Thornberry, said.
’’There’s no coalition, there’s no deals, either the Conservatives will be the minority government if this exit poll is right, or Labour will be the minority government.’’
Rather than seeking a coalition, Labour would put forward a programme for government in the Queen’s Speech and a budget and call on other parties to back it in the House of Commons, Thornberry said. – Bloomberg