LONDON (AP) — Spectacularly punished by voters who took away her majority in Parliament, a politically wounded but defiant Theresa May soldiered on Friday as Britain’s prime minister, resisting pressure to resign after the failure of a high-stakes election gamble that made the massive challenge of untangling Britain from the European Union only more complex and uncertain.Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May listens as the declaration at her constituency is made for in the general election in Maidenhead, England, Friday, June 9, 2017. British Prime Minister Theresa May’s gamble in calling an early election appeared Friday to have backfired spectacularly, after an exit poll suggested her Conservative Party could lose its majority in Parliament.
Having called an early election in hopes of getting an increased majority that could have strengthened her hand in Britain’s exit talks with the EU, May instead saw her majority evaporate completely — leaving her fortunes hanging by a thread and dark clouds over the Brexit negotiations just 10 days before they are due to start.She insisted that she would stick to the Brexit timetable. But she was forced into an alliance with a small party in Northern Ireland just to stay in power. Grim-faced, May said her Conservatives and the Democratic Unionist Party would work together to «provide certainty and lead Britain forward at this critical time.»
Will guide the Country
«This government will guide the country through the crucial Brexit talks … and deliver on the will of the British people by taking the United Kingdom out of the European Union,» she said after seeking Queen Elizabeth II’s approval — a formality — for the new, hastily cobbled-together arrangement.
May’s snap election call was the second time that a Conservative gamble on the issue of Britain’s relations with Europe backfired. Her predecessor, David Cameron, first asked British voters to decide in 2016 whether to leave the EU.Eight people were killed near London Bridge on Saturday when three men drove a van into pedestrians and then stabbed revelers in an area filled with bars and restaurants. Two weeks earlier, a suicide bomber killed 22 people as they were leaving an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester.
But if the election proved one thing, it is that voters in Britain were prepared to be as angry, echoing the undercurrents of elections elsewhere. «Anyone who thought Britain was a calm relaxed, centrist kind of country will have to think again,» Bale said.
Sylvia Hui, Gregory Katz, Sophie Berman, Niko Price and John Leicester contributed to this story, from Associated Press.
