May-hem?

It is the prerogative of the voter to change their mind or declare their mind. In the UK general election that wrapped up in the early hours of Friday both happened, but the result is a hung parliament that makes an already uncertain situation even more tenuous. The only thing that seems certain is the hard Brexit eyed by Prime Minister Theresa May could get more softened by the strong Labour presence, though it is unlikely that May will step down from her position without a fight.   

Despite their calamitous campaign, the Conservatives increased their share of the vote to 42% – up five points since 2015 – which in any other election in the past three decades would have been enough to build a commanding majority.

But Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour outperformed even that achievement as a unique alliance of enthused younger voters and previous non-voters combined with older austerity-hit anti-establishment Ukippers to deliver a 10-point rise in Labour’s vote compared with two years ago, to 40%. This is just below the 41% secured by Tony Blair in his 2001 landslide victory.

The really unexpected factor proved to be the large share of the 4 million Ukippers who backed Labour this time. The local elections in May had seemed to confirm Boris Johnson’s claim that they were “a lost tribe of Tory voters”. But Thursday night showed that was not the case. UKIP haemorrhaged voters to both major parties and failed to secure even one seat. This does not mean their extreme stance on immigration has disappeared from among British voters but larger economic issues, which were overshadowed during the Brexit vote has been slowly returning to the forefront, according to political analysts. 

Jeremy Corbyn, who was largely ridiculed in the run up to the snap parliamentary election, managed to come across as more genuine than his rival who may end up regretting her decision to call for early polls and sacrifice her party’s presence in parliament. May, who fell into the same pit many politicians do after they are elected, failed to gauge her declining popularity accurately. 

There are also early signs of discontent over the possibility the Tories could forge an alliance with the Northern Ireland Democratic Unionists to form a political party, essentially paving the way for critical Westminster decisions to be made on the whims of politicians based in Belfast. Such a situation would not sit well with some members of the British public who would see that as a divergence from the “strong and stable” pledge made by May ahead of the election. 

European Union politicians in Brussels appeared puzzled by the results of the British elections, contending that they preferred the British politicians to get their house in order and start cracking on with Brexit negotiations. The deadline, now less than two years away, will be a key motivator for the two British parties to move beyond policy stagnation common in coalition governments. Both May and Corbyn will have to find a way to navigate tricky election pledges while spearheading Brexit talks with the EU while bolstering their own political survival, all at the same time. British voters may find that this latest round of elections has created more problems than it has solved.