UK GETS ‘HUNG’ UP

British h prime e ministe er ‘May’ beb out in n electio n shocke er

Britain’s ruling party could be hanging on by a thread.

Early results from Thursday’s parliamentary election indicated that neither Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May nor opposition Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has won a majority.

If no party wins enough seats to control the government outright, a so-called “hung Parliament” would result — setting off a political scramble in which both the Conservatives and Labor will vie to cobble together a majority alliance by luring members of third and fourth parties to their sides.

May in the spring had called for the so-called “snap election,” hoping to boost her party’s ranks in Parliament ahead of contentious Brexit talks set to take place later this summer. The gambit backfired. May’s party went into the election with a majority in Parliament, but polls Thursday predicted that her Conservatives would fall about 12 seats shy of the 326 needed for a majority in the 650member legislature.

Corbyn’s Labor Party was expected to come in second with 266 members elected.

The Conservatives had won 298 seats to Labor’s 254, with 31 seats still up in the air early Friday.

The outcome is a huge rebuke for May, who had anticipated a landslide that would strengthen her political mandate ahead of the looming, contentious Brexit.

The Conservatives’ demand for a “hard Brexit” — the severing of nearly all ties with the European Union — may cost them support from the projected third- and fourth-highest vote-getting parties, the Scottish National Party and the Liberal Democrats.

Corbyn’s party favors a “soft Brexit,” which would keep borders open and lessen tariffs on British exports — a position that could win him allies among the pro-EU SNP and the Lib Dems.

According to parliamentary rules, May gets first shot at trying to form a coalition, but Corbyn could begin talks before her efforts have officially failed.

The last time an election resulted in a hung Parliament was in 2010, when Conservatives formed a coalition with the Lib Dems, but that doesn’t seem as likely now.

A Lib Dems former leader, Nick Clegg, has said his party would not make a deal with Conservatives this time around, according to Reuters.

May could also try to press on with a minority government, but her party would need to independently drum up support for each piece of legislation it hopes to pass.

And UK minority governments tend not to last long.

A hung Parliament in 1974 resulted in a Labor-led minority government, but the party had so much trouble passing legislation that then-Prime Minister Harold Wilson called for a new election in a successful bid to establish a majority.