Pressure mounts for Mayto quit
UK PM’s gamble backfires as poll results show her party losing, not gaining, seats
LONDON— British Prime Min- ister Theresa May’s gamble in calling an early election appeared Friday to have backfired spectacularly, with her Conservative Party on the verge of losing its majority in Parliament.
Opposition politicians called for May to resign and pressure to quit also mounted within her own party.
The result looked set to trigger a period of political uncertainty and could throw Britain’s negotiations to leave the European Union—due to start June 19—into disarray.
The pound lost more than 2 cents against the dollar within seconds of an exit poll projecting an uncertain result.
With only 25 of the 650 seats still to declare, the results largely bore out the exit poll, which predicted the Conservatives would get 314 of the 650 House of Commons seats, down from 330. The Labor Party was projected to win 266, up from 229.
John Curtice, who oversees the exit poll for a consortium of broadcasters, said Friday that the Conservatives’ final tally might be a bit higher than 314, but it was extremely unlikely they would get a majority.
As the results piled up, some form of minority or coalition government appeared increasingly likely. That raised the odds that an election called by May to provide “strong and stable government” would bring instability and the chance of yet another early election.
The results confounded those who said the opposition Labor Party’s left-wing leader, Jeremy Corbyn, was electorally toxic. Written off by many poll- sters, Labor surged in the final weeks of the campaign.
It drew strong support from young people, who appeared to have turned out to vote in bigger-than-expected numbers.
By Friday morning, pressure was mounting on May, who called the snap election in the hope of increasing her majority and strengthening Britain’s hand in exit talks with the European Union.
“This is a very bad moment for the Conservative Party, and we need to take stock,” Conser- vative lawmaker Anna Soubry said. “And our leader needs to take stock as well.”
As she was resoundingly reelected to her Maidenhead seat in southern England, May looked tense and did not spell out what she planned to do.
Others predicted she would soon be gone.
Former Conservative Treasury chief George Osborne said the result was “catastrophic.”
“Clearly if she’s got a worse result than two years ago and is almost unable to form a govern- ment, then she, I doubt, will survive in the long term as Conservative Party leader,” he said.
Corbyn said the result means “politics has changed” and voters have rejected Conservative austerity. Speaking after being reelected to his London seat, Corbyn said May should “go and make way for a government that is truly representative of all the people of this country.”
May had hoped the election would focus on Brexit, but that never happened, as both the Conservatives and Labor said they would respect voters’ wishes and go through with the divorce.