THE SNAP ELECTION THAT POPPED THERESA’S BUBBLE

GENERAL ELECTION, JUNE

IT WAS QUITE a moment: 10pm, 8 June, 2017, when the exit poll flashed up on screen and we realised that, in politics at least, everything had changed.

For Theresa May, a win on paper actually delivered a series of losses: chipping away at her mandate on Brexit, devastating her authority and stripping her of a Parliamentary majority.

At Guardian HQ – where I was ensconced, ready to write a rolling version of the next day’s newspaper splash – there was an excited reaction. We knew that this was unfolding into one of the great – and bizarre – news stories of our times.

For Labour, it was an eyeopening experience that didn’t remove Jeremy Corbyn’s critics, but muted them. A man who’d struggled at the helm of a deeply divided party earned his right to be given the space to lead. And that’s not to mention the collective attempt to understand those, ‘Oh, Jeremy Corbyn!’ chants in clubs and festival fields across the country. Labour – led by a man many insisted would destroy the party – had banked 40% of the vote, and turned assumptions about youth turnout, digital campaigning and the power of manifestos on their head. It wasn’t a win for Corbyn, but a victory of sorts, quashing controversial Tory policies on social care and grammar schools.

Then there was Brexit. Undoubtedly, part of May’s hammering had come from remain supporters furious with what they saw as her Government’s drive towards the hardest break possible with the EU.

The result has been a gamechanger. May finds herself facing a Parliament with a clear majority for a soft Brexit, in which pro-eu voices on her back benches could no longer be ignored. Nor could the most vocal campaigners for Brexit, but they wanted stability for now. Among the remainers on all sides of the House was a new fighting mood, and it is that which we are already starting to see unfold, as an emboldened Parliament flexes its newfound muscles.