Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Labor gaining in U.K. exit polls
326 seats needed for clear victory
LONDON — Exit polls showed British Prime Minister Theresa May’s majority hold on Parliament was up in the air, putting her in a tight race with the Labor Party and its leader, Jeremy Corbyn.
May called a snap election in the hope of increasing her majority and strengthening the United Kingdom’s hand in exit talks with the European Union. But the final weeks of the campaign, marred by deadly attacks in Manchester and London, found a surging Labor Party seeking a setback for May.
The earliest survey predicted the Conservatives would get 314 seats and the Labor Party 266. It projected 34 for the Scottish National Party and 14 for the Liberal Democrats. Those numbers put the U.K. with a hung Parliament, in which no party has a majority.
A party needs to win 326 seats in the 650-seat House of Commons to form a majority government. The Conservatives held 330 seats in the last Parliament,
compared with 229 for the Labor Party, 54 for the Scottish National Party and nine for the Liberal Democrats.
A final outcome was not expected before early today.
Within seconds of the exit poll announcement, the pound lost more than 2 cents against the dollar, dropping from $1.2955 to $1.2752, before recovered slightly to $1.2780.
Based on interviews with voters leaving polling stations across the country, the poll is conducted for a consortium of U.K. broadcasters and regarded as a reliable, though not exact, indicator of the likely result.
“If the poll is anything like accurate, this is completely catastrophic for the Conservatives and for Theresa May,” former Conservative Treasury chief George Osborne told ITV. “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.”
During the last election, in 2015, the Conservatives did better than the exit poll predicted, and senior Conservatives said they would take a wait-and-see approach.
“It’s still very, very early in the evening,” Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire said. “It’s too early in the night to be drawing conclusions.”
The forecast is much better than expected for the opposition Labor Party, which had been expected to lose seats.
Labor Party economy spokesman John McDonnell, one of Corbyn’s main deputies, urged caution.
“I’m a natural pessimist, and we’ll see whether I’m an optimist in the morning,” he said. The result was bad for the Scottish National Party, predicted to lose 20 of its 54 seats — though the pollsters cautioned that there is a lot of uncertainty around the Scottish forecast.
A big loss could complicate the Scottish Nationalists’ plans to push for a new referendum on Scottish independence as the U.K. prepares to leave the EU.
TERROR ANXIETY
May called the election seven weeks ago — three years ahead of schedule and with her party was well ahead in the polls. She argued that increasing the Conservative majority in Parliament would strengthen the U.K.’s hand in EU-exit talks.
While she was personally against Britain’s exit from the EU, the June 2016 vote in favor caused David Cameron to resign, and she emerged as prime minister.
But the EU exit failed to emerge as a major issue in the campaign, as both the Conservatives and the Labor Party said they would respect voters’ wishes and go through with the break-up.
Then attacks that killed 30 people in Manchester and London twice brought the campaign to a halt, sent a wave of anxiety through the U.K. and forced May to defend the government’s record on fighting terrorism.
Eight people were killed near London Bridge on Saturday when three men drove a van into pedestrians and then stabbed revelers in an area filled with bars and restaurants. Two weeks earlier, a suicide bomber killed 22 people as they were leaving a concert in Manchester. Before the election, five people died during a vehicle and knife attack near Parliament on March 22.
Rachel Sheard, who cast her vote near the site of the London Bridge attack, said the election hadn’t gone as expected — and that it certainly wasn’t about the British exit. “I don’t think that’s in the hearts and minds of Londoners at the minute, [not] nearly as much as security is,” said Sheard, 22. “It was very scary on Saturday.”
After the attacks in Manchester and London, May said this week that she would consider rewriting human-rights legislation if it gets in the way of tackling extremism.
Corbyn, meanwhile, accused Conservatives of undermining the U.K.’s security by cutting the number of police on the streets.
Maria Balas, 28, a waitress, said security was the prime issue. “England is under attack and at this time we need a strong leader more than ever,” Balas said after casting her vote for the governing Conservative Party. “I don’t like Theresa May, and I wouldn’t have bothered to vote if this election was all about giving her more power to take us into the mess of Brexit, but now we are dealing with a security crisis, and I think she is the most qualified person in the running who can deal with that.”
While security was on many voters’ minds, it was far from the only issue.
“It’s important, but it’s only one issue amongst several,” said 68-year-old Mike Peacroft. “I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s at the top. Obviously at my end of the [age] spectrum I’m more interested in things like pensions and so forth, [National Health Service] health care — plus schooling, those are really my main concerns.”
In London’s eastern borough of Hackney, young people seemed more concerned about future job prospects.
“The Tories only care about the rich and their interests,” said Luke Wright, 26, who earns about $9.70 an hour working at a stationery shop.
“I have computer skills that could get me a much higher-paying job, but they are given to people who could afford university fees and living costs,” he said. “If Labor won I’d have a chance to make more cash and get out of this job that I’m overqualified for.”
May, who went into the election with a reputation for quiet competence, was criticized for a lackluster campaigning style and for a plan to force elderly people to pay more for their care, a proposal her opponents dubbed the “dementia tax.” As the polls suggested a tightening race, pollsters spoke less often of a landslide and raised the possibility that May’s majority would be eroded.
In her final message to voters, May tried to put the focus back on the British exit.
“I can only build that better country and get the right deal in Brussels with the support of the British people,” she said. “So whoever you have voted for in the past, if that is the future you want then vote Conservative today and we can all go forward together.”
Corbyn has drawn thousands of people to upbeat rallies and energized young voters with his plans to boost spending on health and education after years of Conservative austerity.