British voters have dealt Prime Minister Theresa May a heavy blow, wiping out her parliamentary majority and giving a boost to Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party.
"I have just been to see Her Majesty the Queen, and I will now form a government - a government that can provide certainty and lead Britain forward at this critical time for our country", a grim-faced May said in a statement delivered outside 10 Downing Street. When Conservative prime minister Stanley Baldwin resigned, a second minority Labour government was formed, and MacDonald returned as prime minister.
On the eve of the British election on Thursday, Nate Silver and Harry Enten of FiveThirtyEight offered three equally probable outcomes for the contest: 1) a landslide win for Theresa May's ruling Conservatives, 2) a narrower win for the same, or 3) a hung parliament with no party garnering a majority but the Conservatives remaining the largest party.
In the wake of last year's Brexit referendum, called and lost by Prime Minister David Cameron, Britain's Conservative party took a long time to reorganize itself before it finally triggered the Brexit negotiations on March 29.
"Yet another own goal, after Cameron now May", tweeted Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament's negotiator for Brexit.
The UK has been one of US President Donald Trump's few European friends since he took office.
He stressed that the campaign led by May was rather disadvantageous for her and was driven by an internal political agenda rather than the Brexit talks, and that the elevated terrorist threat cost her the votes. The magazine criticized May's inflexible rhetoric in the face of worse than expected results, claiming that through her appeal for "stability", it was as if "she was trying to parody herself".
A former DUP minister once defended a catholic preacher who compared Islam to Satanism. Anna Soubry, a Conservative MP, said May would have to consider her position. May's reasons for doing so reflected tensions within the Conservative Party.
"I'm afraid we ran a pretty awful campaign", Soubry said. "What's happened is people have said they've had quite enough of austerity politics".
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To pass new legislation, May has turned to the DUP, a small party from Northern Ireland known for pursuing a more socially conservative agenda than the Tories.
Being a pro-union party, the joining up of forces may affect May's hopes for achieving a hard Brexit.
Experts say one reason Jeremy Corbyn, who heads the Labour Party, did so well in this election is because Labour, which did not support Brexit, publicly accepted the move nonetheless. "Do your best to avoid a "no deal" as a result of 'no negotiations'". Though the biggest single victor, they failed to reach the 326-mark they would need to command a parliamentary majority.
The Liberal Democrats who had won just eight seats in 2015 have improved their tally to 12. Tim Farron, the current leader, retained his seat with only a narrow majority.
Across Europe, the unexpected results of Britain's snap election immediately called into question the future of the negotiations over the British exit from the European Union. The gainers have been their bitter rival - the Labour party.
But as has become her modus operandi, she flip-flopped.
That will nearly certainly be pushed back even more, as the Conservative Party now has its hands full trying to form a coalition with one or more other parties so as to remain in power.
Although called as a Brexit election, the campaign was quickly overshadowed by security as two deadly terror attacks, in Manchester and London, struck.
That was also the broadly desired outcome in Brussels, where leaders believed that a stronger British government would be better able to cut compromise deals with the European Union and resist pressure from hardline pro-Brexit factions in her party that have called for Britain to reject European Union terms and potentially walk out without a deal.
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