Main parties in U.K. take battering over Brexit stance

Conservatives, Labour lose over 1,000 local seats, increasing pressure on PM May to resign

LONDON— For months, there has been little doubt that the British electorate is disillusioned and furious with the political dysfunction and the chaos of Brexit. But there hadn’t been an outlet for the public to vent that anger — until now.

Across much of England, election results for around 8,400 local seats, tabulated Friday, delivered a vicious backlash against the country’s two main political parties, the governing Conservatives and the Labour opposition. The Conservatives lost more than 1,000 seats, while Labour lost more than 100.

“What the voters have been saying is, ‘A plague on both your houses,’ ” Britain’s leading polling expert, John Curtice, a professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde, told the BBC.

It was a furious electoral tidal wave with unlikely winners: The centrist Liberal Democrats, Greens and Independents picked up hundreds of seats, even as they are marginalized in Parliament. Even so, the local results seem unlikely to immediately alter the paralyzed state of Brexit, although that will be tested next week when talks resume between the Conservatives and Labour to try to find a compromise.

For now, Britain seems stuck in a feedback loop, even as the country is facing the likelihood of holding European parliamentary elections in less than three weeks, despite trying to leave the bloc.

The calculus in Parliament, where lawmakers have been unable to pass much of anything, remains unchanged.

“We have the same situation as before — only more so,” said Anand Menon, a professor of European politics and foreign affairs at King’s College London. “The incentives to agree to something are now greater, but the constraints on anyone’s ability to deliver that are probably greater, too.”

While the results increase pressure on political leaders to strike a deal across party lines on Brexit, their internal critics who strongly support or oppose Brexit are likely to be more implacably opposed to any possible solution, leaving a stalemate, Menon said.

The infighting among Conservatives seems certain to continue: The local results summoned calls yet again for Prime Minister Theresa May to resign.

Her rival, Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn, is under pressure from the pro-Brexit and anti-Brexit wings of his own party. The local results show that Corbyn’s balancing act over Brexit, designed to appease both supporters and opponents of withdrawal, is pleasing neither side, presenting him with an excruciating dilemma.

Some lawmakers representing pro-Brexit areas, mainly in the north and middle of England, want Corbyn to agree next week on a plan to help May push withdrawal through a deadlocked Parliament in the hope that this will defuse the crisis.

On Friday, Corbyn acknowledged that pressure when he told ITV News: “An arrangement has to be made; a deal has to be done; Parliament has to resolve this issue. I think that is very, very clear.”

But an equally vocal faction, representing most of the party’s members, wants Labour to commit to putting any Brexit agreement back to the voters in a referendum with an option to remain in the bloc — an idea that Corbyn has so far resisted.

As for May, her position is under more pressure than ever, though she has already promised to stand aside once her Brexit withdrawal agreement has been approved. In a new low for her premiership, she was heckled Friday at a meeting of her own party members in Wales by a former county councillor, Stuart Davies, who called for her to resign.

May acknowledged in her speech to Conservative Party members in Wales that the results of Thursday’s elections had been “very difficult.” Corbyn, speaking in the north of England, said he was disappointed by the results and “wanted to do better.”