Tottering Theresa May names new UK Cabinet as critics circle

British Prime Minister Theresa May says she will stay in office although her party lost its parliamentary majority in elections.

“We were absolutely buzzing”, said one of the party campaigners who was with others gathered around a TV at the Labour party headquarters in Victoria Street, London, as quoted by The Guardian on Friday.

Back in April, the Prime Minister called the election as polls pointed to a landslide result for the her party.

The gamble failed, with the Conservative party losing its strong polling lead over the course of the campaign.

With results declared for almost all of the 650 seats, Conservatives won 318 while the opposition Labour secured 262, leaving neither party anywhere close to the 326 seats required for an overall majority. The DUP’s 10 seats push May to 328, two seats above the threshold for a working majority.

May announced the party would try to work with Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), an alliance that is fraught with difficulties.

The survey predicted the Conservatives will get 314 seats and the Labour Party 266.

He had annoyed many Conservatives who want a clean break with the European Union by stressing the need for a Brexit deal that allows companies to keep on hiring the migrant workers they need, and took the blame for a policy U-turn in March when he quickly dropped a plan to raise social security tax for self-employed workers.

May confirmed she meant to start talks with the Europeans on June 19 as planned, promising to “get to work”.

Reflecting the sharp change in May’s fortunes, London bookmakers were taking increasing bets on Saturday that Johnson would soon move to topple May. For the second time in the same period, the fate of a Conservative prime minister is under serious threat after the British public has all but rejected their mandate.

DUP leader Arlene Foster said “we have made good progress but the discussions continue”.

The election campaign was rocked by two terror attacks, which drew attention to May’s record in her former job as interior minister, while her own performances were heavily criticised.

The surprising outcome, which sent the pound tumbling, forced May to form a minority government, leaving her reliant on a small group of Northern Irish parliamentarians, just nine days before Britain is due to begin negotiating a deal to leave the EU.

“We are still in government and, after all is said and done, Labour were 50, 60 seats behind us”. That could cheer opponents of a “hard Brexit” that would take Britain completely out of the single market and the customs union. But few believe she can hang on for more than a few months.

It is a testimony to the low expectations for Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour that this result is being hailed as a victory for the party, even though it lost to the Conservatives by about the same popular vote percentage as Donald Trump lost to Hillary Clinton.