British Prime Minister Theresa May will be forced to seek the support of a regional party in order to continue governing, after the general election she called backfired dramatically.
May's Conservative party is still the largest party in Parliament, but no longer has enough seats to govern alone, after key seats fell to the Labour Party. Although some results are still being counted, the final Conservative tally is expected to be 319, down from 331 in the last election in 2015. Labour won 261 seats.
May is now expected to form a minority government with the support of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), a Northern Irish party with 10 members of Parliament, which is dedicated to keeping Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom.
May had called the election in order to consolidate her mandate to negotiate Britain's exit from the Europe Union. But, instead, support for her party declined dramatically, leaving her government far more precarious than before. Speaking after the outcome became clear, May acknowledged that the result was a disappointment.
"I wanted to achieve a larger majority, and that was not the result we achieved," she said. "As I reflect on the results, I will reflect on what we need to do in the future to take the party forward."
The campaign began with a clear lead for May and the Conservatives, reinforcing a perception that Labour's Jeremy Corbyn was too left-wing to attract widespread support. On election night, Corbyn led one of the largest swings to Labour since World War II. His campaign featured a promise to end university tuition fees, increase taxation of higher earners and increase investment in health services. It also promised to guarantee the rights of European citizens currently living in Britain, regardless of the outcome of the Brexit negotiations.
Today, Corbyn said that he had "changed the face of British politics" and that politics "isn't going back into the box where it was before."
From PRI's The World ©2017 PRI
