- Opinion
- 09 Jun 17
Election Disaster For Theresa May As Hung Parliament Confirmed
Perhaps ex-English footballer Gary Lineker summed it all up best by saying that the British Prime Minister "has won own goal of the season" after her gamble to hold a snap general election spectacularly backfired.
With her party initially riding high in the opinion polls, PM Theresa May had called an early election in effort to gain a stronger mandate as she lead the country into Brexit talks with the EU. But it backfired with catastrophic loses for the Conservatives who only managed to pick up 318 seats
And this will fall way short of an overall majority of 326 and has resulted in a hung parliament.
Labour made significant gains and are at 261 seats. The SNP are on 35, Lib at 12, the Greens at 1, the Dup at 10 and others are on 12. So far 649 of 650 seats have been declared this morning.
Sinn Féin has climbed from four to seven, but as is their tradition, have ruled out actually taking up the seats in the House of Commons. While UKIP failed to win a single seat.
Labour made significant gains thanks to Jeremy Corbyn being able to energise a young vote. Corbyn pointed out that Theresa May's party had failed to give young people "the chance they deserve in our society".
He added, "What's happened is people have said they have had quite enough of austerity politics, they have had quite enough of cuts in public expenditure, underfunding our health service, underfunding our schools and our education service and not giving our young people the chance they deserve in our society."
A jubilant Jeremy Corbyn is now calling on the PM to fall on her own sword. "The Prime Minister called the election because she wanted a mandate. Well the mandate she has got is lost Conservative seats, lost votes, lost support and lost confidence," the Labour leader said.
It's now being speculated that the only way Theresa May could pull off a miracle and put a government together is for her to look to Northern Ireland for the support of the DUP.
However, Theresa May certainly isn't guaranteed that the DUP will support her in government. With Simon Hamilton MLA having this to say: “Clearly our votes are going to be incredibly important in the new parliament. First and foremost we will look to achieve our goals in respect to getting the best deal for Northern Ireland. We’re also very mindful of our responsibilities in the national political scene and this is a very difficult time for the United Kingdom.”
The inconclusive result now means it's all up in the air and that it's mathematically possible for either the Tories or Labour to put together a coalition.
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