May’s failed election gamble creates chaos
Prime minister’s Brexit negotiations will be complicated given her newly weakened position
She gambled and lost. Now, British Prime Minister Theresa May faces tough talks on exiting the European Union and playing a role on the world stage in a weakened position.
May’s “strong and stable” mantra during the parliamentary election campaign is now anything but, as she licks her wounds after her attempt to bolster her political strength in the run- up to the difficult Brexit negotiations this month backfired.
May’s Conservative Party had counted on a resounding triumph in Thursday’s general election. Instead, it lost 12 seats and failed to clinch a majority of 326 in the House of Commons. That has forced her to govern as
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a minority party allied with Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party ( DUP), which won 10 seats and can provide a majority on key votes.
“Political instability at home could mean yet more uncertainty abroad,” said Adrian Pabst, a political expert at the University of Kent. Now, he said, the Conservative Party “will struggle to conduct the Brexit negotiations. And it will limit the U. K.’ s power in international affairs, including trying to influence the Trump administration or working with the EU to fight Islamic terrorism.”
Across the English Channel, senior EU officials fretted that the election result could further delay the divorce process and result in a poor outcome for everyone.
“We need a government that can act,” Guenther Oettinger, the German member of the EU executive, told the Deutschlandfunk radio station. “With a weak negotiating partner, there’s the danger that the negotiations will turn out badly.”
Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament’s Brexit representative, tweeted that the election “will make already complex negotiations evenmore complicated.”
The small Northern Ireland party that will work with May backed Brexit ahead of the referendum last year but its leader, Arlene Foster, has spoken out against a “hard Brexit,” which May favors. It means the U. K. would leave the EU’s single market without the benefit of unrestricted trade.
Brexit Secretary David Davis added to the confusion by suggesting in an interview on Sky News that the Conservatives loss of their majority meant the public had not endorsed their pledge to take Britain out of the single market.
Michael Geary, a fellow at the Wilson Center think tank, said the election has “thrown the country into disarray.” The DUP “will be looking for a better Brexit deal for Northern Ireland, especially on issues like a soft border with the Republic of Ireland and commitments to strengthen the union with London,” he said.
The formal negotiations for Brexit are due to start June 19.
Donald Tusk, president of the EU Council of European leaders, issued a statement Friday saying: “Our shared responsibility and urgent task now is to conduct the negotiations on the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union in the best possible spirit.”
Jonathan Golub, an academic at the school of politics and international relations at Reading University, said the election will not resolve any of the challenges facing the U. K. and hurts May. “She will take the blame for wasting the country’s time and the government’s resources on a pointless election instead of developing a popular and viable plan for Brexit.”
May “will take the blame for wasting the country’s time and the government’s resources on a pointless election instead of developing a viable plan for Brexit.” Jonathan Golub, an academic at Reading University