Stunning blow for May in United Kingdom exit poll

While May has said she won’t make any sudden moves in leadership – leaving Secretary of State for International Development Priti Patel in place – her weakened position and a robust Labour Party in opposition means many Conservative plans around foreign aid will likely lose momentum.

“It is clear that only the Conservative and Unionist Party has the legitimacy and ability to provide that”, she said.

“And I’m sorry for all those candidates and hard-working party workers who weren’t successful, but also particularly sorry for those colleagues who were MPs and ministers who contributed so much to our country and who lost their seats and didn’t deserve to lose their seats”.

Former Tory ministers even suggested her U-turn had come too late to avoid damage. When Prime Minister Theresa May announced in April that she was calling snap elections in less than two months, little did she imagine that her sky-high favourability ratings and hopes for a thumping mandate for a hard Brexit would rapidly fizzle out. Northern Ireland’s Democrat Unionist Party gained 2 seats to secure a total of 10 and the U.K. Independence Party (UKIP), which fought for the Brexit referendum, lost their only seat. The Conservatives held 330 seats in the last Parliament, compared with 229 for Labour, 54 for the Scottish National Party and nine for the Lib Dems.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte offered his own cautious evaluation on Friday.

For instance, Menon said, some pro-EU Conservative legislators may wait until the Brexit legislative program comes to Parliament to start attacking it.

The longer it takes for a viable government to emerge, the less time the United Kingdom has to work out an amicable divorce with the EU. She argued that increasing the Conservative majority in Parliament would strengthen Britain’s hand in Brexit talks. “We know when they must end.”, Mr Tusk tweeted.

But Brexit talks – which are due to start in 10 day’s time – could be delayed and the Prime Minister’s personal authority undermined by the shock result.

Currently, investors seem to worry that a weakened Conservative prime minister would not have the power to resist calls from some within the party who want a clean divorce from the European Union, even if that means losing privileged access to the European Union single market.

In the absence of a formal coalition, May’s government would survive from vote to vote in parliament – and with such a slim majority over the progressive parties, they would be vulnerable to defeats if there were absences or a threat to cross the floor. And if Mr Corbyn’s current trajectory continues he and the Labour Party will pose a serious threat to Mrs May.

“One year after their referendum, we still don’t know the British position in the negotiations on Brexit and it seems hard to predict when we will because democracy often requires time”, she said.

To pass new legislation, May has turned to the DUP, a small party from Northern Ireland known for pursuing a more socially conservative agenda than the Tories.

Activists who have worked on mobilizing younger voters for years nevertheless believe that 2017 could become a watershed moment in British politics.

The other politician who should be chastened by the election result is Nicola Sturgeon, whose hubristic call for a second independence referendum was nearly as disastrous as Ms May’s decision to call a snap vote.

Terror attacks in London and Manchester made security an unexpectedly dominant factor in the election campaign. The pollsters had her turning great swathes of the country blue and her inner circle privately talked about a 100 seat majority.