(This image of British Prime Minister Theresa May is from BBC News.)A few weeks ago, the Conservative Prime Minister of Great Britain (Theresa May) had a slim majority in Parliament. There were 330 Conservative members of the 650 member Parliament -- slightly more than the 326 members needed to have a ruling majority.
But May looked at the polls that showed the Conservatives about 16 points ahead of the Labour Party, and thought she could expand her majority -- making it easier to rule and get her agenda passed. So she called for an election.
Unfortunately for her, she ran a poor campaign while the Labour Party leader (Jeremy Corbyn) ran a good campaign -- and that 16 point lead shrank to almost nothing.
The election was held on Thursday, and the results were not good for Prime Minister May. Instead of increasing her majority in Parliament, she lost that majority. While the Conservatives finished in first, they no longer had a majority -- falling short by about 8 members. She will have to join with another party -- probably the Irish Democratic Unionists who have 10 members. Still though, it will be a very slim majority -- and it will be much more difficult for the Conservatives to rule.
Calling for a "snap" election turned out to be a colossal blunder. The real question now is whether May will survive as Conservative Party leader and Prime Minister. I expect if she is not replaced immediately, it will only be a few months before it happened. After all, the Conservatives are shocked and embarrassed at the election results, and May is the person they will blame for that.
The expect results of the major parties are below (with the numbers in parentheses representing the members of Parliament each party had before the election):
Conservative..........318 (330)
Labour..........261 (229)
Scottish National..........35 (54)
Liberal Democrat..........13 (9)
Democratic Unionist..........10 (8)
Plaid Cymru..........3 (3)
Sinn Fein..........7 (4)
Green..........1 (1)
