May shrugs off shock election forecast

BRITISH Prime Minister Theresa May was fighting to shore up her general election campaign yesterday after a shock projection forecast a hung parliament and left the pound wobbling.

The landslide Conservative victory May hoped to seal by calling a snap election for June 8 seemed much less likely with eight days to go, with the polls narrowing and the premier putting in a lacklustre performance in a major television interview.

The opposition Labour Party, led by veteran socialist Jeremy Corbyn, has gradually nibbled away at the Conservative lead in the polls.

But May insisted she had the best plan for taking Britain into negotiations over its exit from the European Union, which start 11 days after the election.

“The only poll that matters is the one that’s going to take place on June 8,” she said on a campaign visit to Plymouth in southwest England.

“Then people will have a choice as to who they want to see as leader, who they want to see as prime minister taking this country forward in the future – me or Jeremy Corbyn.

“I have the plan for the Brexit negotiations, but I have also got a plan to build a stronger and more prosperous Britain.”

May called the election three years early in a bid to strengthen her slender majority in parliament going into the Brexit talks.