BRITAIN ON A KNIFE EDGE
Shock exit poll predicts May falling short of overall majority But Tories claim she could remain in No10 Boost for Corbyn as Labour gains are forecast
THERESA May’s election gamble appeared to have backfired last night after a surprise Labour surge.
An exit poll at 10pm predicted Britain was heading for another hung parliament that could even put Jeremy Corbyn into No 10.
It suggested Mrs May was on course to lose her overall majority after a campaign described by one minister as ‘the worst in living memory’.
The survey predicted the Tories would end on 314 seats, 12 short of a majority. Labour was forecast to be on 266 seats, with the SNP on 34 and the Liberal Democrats on 14.
If correct, it would mean Mrs May’s bid to secure a stronger mandate for Brexit had backfired disastrously.
It also plunges Brexit negotiations, due to start on June 19, into doubt.
Privately, Tory sources believed the final results would be ‘a bit better’ than the exit poll suggested, holding out the prospect that Mrs May could scrape together a small majority.
The experts behind the poll suggested 76 seats were too close to call, meaning almost any result was possible. A Labour source last night suggested the exit poll could be out by 15 seats – enough to give Mrs May a narrow majority.
A Tory source also predicted the party would do better than forecast, saying: ‘It will look very different by 3am.’ Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon played down the shock projection, saying: ‘These exit polls have been wrong in the past. We do need to see some actual results.’
But George Osborne said a hung parliament would be ‘completely catastrophic for the Conservatives and Theresa May’. The Tory former chancellor said it was difficult to see how the party would put together a coalition, adding that the results would be ‘on a real knife edge’.
Ed Balls predicted there would be another election soon. ‘If this is right, this is a very turbulent period for British politics,’ said the Labour exminister. ‘This looks like 1974.
‘A Conservative prime minister who didn’t need to call an election, who has been given a real kicking by the British people.’
Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry said Labour was ready for government – and called on Mrs May to resign. ‘These are early exit polls but they have been right for the last 20 or 30 years or so,’ she said. ‘We are on the verge of a great result.
‘This is a great result if it is true. If this is right, I think she should consider her position.
‘I think she should go, because she has manifestly failed. But secondly
we will see what happens next. But if Labour is called on to provide the next government we will do so and we will do so in a unified way.’
The knife- edge outcome threatens to plunge Britain into turmoil, and could even hand the keys of Downing Street to Mr Corbyn.
A defeat on this scale would be a humiliation for Mrs May and would cast doubt about her future as Tory leader.
If coalition talks are needed, the UK may not even have a government by that point.
The pound slumped by 1.5 per cent in the minutes after the poll came out as the markets took fright at the prospect of political instability.
One minister last night described the Tory campaign as ‘the worst in living memory’ and warned it would have an impact on Mrs May’s authority after polling day.
‘Whatever the final parliamentary arithmetic, we have come out muddled and weakened from an exercise that was designed to give us clarity and strength,’ he said.
If the Tories emerge as the largest party then Mrs May will have the first chance to try to form a government. But there are no obvious coalition partners beyond the DUP, which could leave her forced to try to run a minority government.
If she fails it would fall to Mr Corbyn to try to cobble together a coalition from a rag bag of other parties, including the SNP, the Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and the Greens.
Either way, the political turmoil means that Britain is likely to face another election within 12 months.
Mrs May had planned for a major reshuffle later today, in which the Chancellor Philip Hammond is heavily tipped for the sack. But the defeat leaves her fighting for her own political future.
Exit polls put Labour on course for a remarkable result, which had seemed impossible when the snap election was called seven weeks ago and the Conservatives led by more than 20 points.
Mr Corbyn’s achievement in closing the gap leaves him secure in his job. The result will be seen as vindication by his hard Left supporters and allow him to tighten his grip on the party.
The SNP was forecast to lose 18 seats, banishing any prospect of an early second referendum on independence.
The Liberal Democrats’ decision to stake everything on promising a second referendum on Britain’s EU membership also looked to have backfired, with the party forecast to pick up just 14 seats.
And UKIP’s future is also in doubt, with former supporters apparently deserting to the Conservatives in droves.
Some senior Tories are urging Mrs May to reflect on the lessons of what has been a difficult election campaign.
She will now face pressure to widen her circle of advisers and adopt a more consensual style to avoid further missteps like the social care reforms. These went down so badly with voters that Mrs May had to execute an unprecedented partial U-turn just days after the manifesto was published.
Mrs May called the election to secure a strong mandate for the Brexit negotiations.
The slender majority she inherited from David Cameron left her vulnerable to backbench rebellions from pro-Remain Tories.
And, without a specific mandate to take Britain out of the European Union, she faced a debilitating parliamentary battle with Europhile peers.
She might now enter talks with Brussels on June 19 without a firm mandate.
‘Three spoonfuls of arsenic’
GeorGe osborne last night waited less than an hour to describe the predicted election result as ‘ completely catastrophic for the Conservatives and Theresa May’.
An exit poll indicated Mrs May would lose as many as 17 seats and her overall majority in the Commons.
If confirmed, the result will be a major personal blow to Mrs May – and significantly weaken her grip on No 10. It would force her to try to patch together a coalition with smaller parties such as Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party.
Mr osborne – who was sacked by Mrs May last year and is now editor of the London evening Standard – said Mrs May would struggle to survive as Tory leader if she lost seats compared to 2015.
‘Clearly, if she’s got a worse result than two years ago and is almost unable to form a government then she, I doubt, will survive in the long term as Conservative party leader,’ he said.
The former MP for Tatton told ITV: ‘It is early days, it’s a poll, if the poll is anything like accurate this is completely catastrophic for the Conservatives and for Theresa May. It’s difficult to see, if these numbers are right, how they would put together the coalition to remain in office. But equally it’s quite difficult to see how Labour could put together a coalition.’
Sir Craig oliver, David Cameron’s former director of communications, said Mrs May would face plotting against her leadership within hours and could be in ‘serious trouble’.
He said there was ‘real concern in the Conservative Party tonight’ and the exit poll would have to be ‘significantly wrong’ to get her over a 50-seat majority – seen as a minimum target.
It follows a campaign which began with the Conservatives boasting double digit poll leads and Mrs May sky-high personal ratings.
But the poll lead collapsed after a disastrous manifesto launch which forced Mrs May to U-turn on a social care policy quickly nicknamed a ‘dementia tax’.
Before voting finished yesterday, one minister described the Tory campaign as the ‘worst in living memory’.
But Tory Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon tried to play down the significance of the poll.
‘This is a projection, it’s not a result. These exit polls have been wrong in the past,’ he told the BBC.
But Sir Craig told Sky News: ‘ The Conservative Party are going to have to go some to actually get towards 50, so she would be in serious trouble. I have been talking to some people at CCHQ and apparently it is very silent there, with a lot of people looking at their phones and watching the TV in silence and in genuine shock by this.
‘Now of course the exit poll could be wrong, but historically it has been very accurate.’ Sir Craig also warned the result would make running the country even harder ‘at these incredibly difficult times, with Brexit negotiations and concern about public services, it is going to be an incredibly volatile period if this is true’.
‘The reality is that you will seeing people plotting – maybe somebody not that far away from you in the next 24 hours, if this is true. This is incredibly close in Parliament, if this is true.’
Mrs May will face an immediate and brutal post-mortem.
The manifesto announced policies which would have seen better- off pensioners pay more for their care and abandoned a previous promise of a cap on care costs.
Within days, Tory candidates reported the policy was ‘toxic’ on the doorsteps and Mrs May was forced to make an ugly U- turn in the middle of the campaign.
Yesterday one backbench Tory said the document contained ‘three spoonfuls of arsenic’, also pointing to unpopular policies to means test the winter fuel allowance and dropping the pensions triple lock.
He said: ‘If the manifesto had been properly passed by them they would have put a stop to it.
‘Manifestos are usually apple pie and ice cream. Instead we got three spoonfuls of arsenic and – surprise surprise – people didn’t like it.’
The catastrophic manifesto launch led to a ‘wobble weekend’ when the polls tightened sharply and Mrs May’s personal ratings plummeted.
Mr osborne was a TV pundit alongside former Labour Cabi- net minister ed Balls, who said: ‘If this is correct we’ll have another general election soon. ‘ This is a very turbulent period for British politics. This looks like 1974. A Conservative prime minister who didn’t need to call an election... who has been given a real kicking by the British people.’
After the result was announced the odds on Boris
Johnson becoming the next Prime Minister plummeted from 25-1 to 5-1 in a matter of minutes.
The social care policy was inserted into the manifesto at the last minute by Mrs May’s advisor Nick Timothy but without a cap on costs. Cabinet ministers did not approve the manifesto, except the areas relating to their own briefs.