British PM Theresa May loses majority, faces pressure to resign

In one of many striking moments, the party lost the seat of Canterbury for the first time in a century.

Following the General Election in 2010, when no party had a majority, Gordon Brown remained as prime minister while the talks were taking place.

With no clear victor emerging from Thursday's parliamentary election, a wounded May signaled she would fight on, despite being on course to lose her majority in the House of Commons.

The poll predicted the Conservatives would win a mere 314 seats in the general election, putting it 12 seats short of an overall majority.

Prime Minister Theresa May is fighting to hold on to her job after British voters dealt her a punishing blow, denying her the stronger mandate she had sought to conduct Brexit talks, and instead weakening her party's grip on power. It had been classified as a Brexit election and the result is being seen as giving hope to the 48 per cent who had voted to remain in the European Union in the June 2016 referendum and a rejection of May's so-called "hard Brexit" stance.

"Currencies like governments with mandates - and don't like delays to Brexit".

She insisted that she would stick to the Brexit timetable.

Another EU official in Brussels said it was too early to speculate on how the bloc would react to a change in Britain's demands for its withdrawal. They governed together until 2015. In others, the party saw its share of the vote slide, such as in the London constituency of Putney, where it hung on by a majority of just over 1,500 seats.

The Conservatives' other coalition options are limited.

The Conservatives will look to work with the Unionist parties in Northern Ireland but that still may not give them a working majority.

SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon said the election "has been a disaster for Theresa May", reports the BBC.

Even beyond the Conservatives, the polls delivered a number of shocks - with two senior SNP figures Angus Robertson and Alex Salmond losing their seats, as the party came under pressure from a resurgence in support for both the Conservatives and the Labour Party.

Even if Labour forms a pact with the Scottish National Party, they may also not have enough to form even a minority government.

Following last June's Brexit referendum, the process officially started in March when May served formal notice of Britain's intention to leave the EU.

However, Labour has fought to water down Mrs May's Brexit strategy which could make it easier to reach a compromise with either the Liberal Democrats, which has ruled out any coalition, or the pro-European SNP, which says it wants to stop another Conservative government.

"It is exactly the opposite of why she held the election and she then has to go and negotiate Brexit in that weakened position", said Professor Tony Travers of the London School of Economics. What this will do is also test the cross-party support for May's pre-election promises.

But there is also a chance the United Kingdom could go back to polls later this year under the Fixed Term Parliament Act, if two- thirds of MPs vote for it and lose confidence in a government that is not strong enough. But in the post-referendum world all political developments need to viewed through a Brexit prism and an argument can be made that a "hung parliament might actually be GBP positive".

Aside from Brexit, Labour party plans to rehaul Britain's fiscal policy, which translates to raising taxes on big firms and the wealthy to pay for higher public spending on education, police, healthcare.

If it wasn't for the nationalists' miscalculation, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn could have been picking up the keys to 10 Downing Street.

However, Labour has also committed to creating a 250 billion pound fund for investment in infrastructure which will be spent over a 10-year period, indicating it will be funded by borrowing.