UK PM May seen fighting for survival after election failure

All of this will certainly make Brexit negotiations more complex.

People living in Britain are waking up to uncertainty as Prime Minister Theresa May ignored calls to stand down after the ruling Conservative Party lost an overall majority in parliament in a general election on Thursday.

Those flaws were skilfully exploited by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, a veteran grassroots activist who hammered away at Ms.

With shameless speed, however, she has negotiated herself into partnership with Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party, giving her a slim majority in parliament.

With only 17 of the 650 seats still to declare, the results largely bore out the exit poll, which predicted the Conservatives would get 314 of the 650 House of Commons seats, down from 330.

She later announced that her top ministers, including finance minister Philip Hammond, foreign minister Boris Johnson and Brexit minister David Davis, would remain in their positions.

In a statement outside Downing Street, the 60-year-old premier promised to "fulfil the promise of Brexit".

The blame-game has started within the Conservative Party. "This will allow us to come together as a country and channel our energies towards a successful Brexit deal".

European Council President Donald Tusk also warned there was "no time to lose" in starting the negotiations.

European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker added he hoped there would not be "further delay" in the talks that "we are desperately waiting for".

After promising for months that she'd never call an early election, Tory Prime Minister Theresa May called a snap general election in April - fully expecting to be returned with a thumping Conservative majority.

Diplomatic veterans say the Brexit process is as titanic in scale as it is historically unprecedented.

Some experts are calling the Conservatives' unexpected loss of seats a rejection of the "hard Brexit" May advocated, which would take Britain out of the single market.

"That's going to make it hard for the European Union 27 because they're going to want to know who they're talking to and what their policy is". "Do your best to avoid a "no deal" as result of "no negotiations".

"We need a government that can act", EU Budget Commissioner Guenther Oettinger told German broadcaster Deutschlandfunk.

But cracks in her campaign-trail performance began to show, and widened with a bad tactical misstep she made on health care for the elderly.

She also apologised to her colleagues who had lost seats as a outcome.

So May, searching for her mandate, rolled the dice and lost.

Just 36 percent believe she should stay on, while 4 percent said they didn't know.

"Honestly, it feels nearly like she is nearly not aware of what has happened in the last 24 hours", Conservative MP Heidi Allen told LBC radio.

DUP leader Arlene Foster's initial comments were non-committal: "The prime minister has spoken with me this morning and we will enter discussions with the Conservatives to explore how it may be possible to bring stability to our nation at this time of great challenge".

"Mayhem" screamed the headline on the front page of The Sun, Britain's biggest selling newspaper that is normally sympathetic to the Conservatives.

While she has generally gone out of her way to be vague on what she means by Brexit, the general assumption within Britain is that May wants to renegotiate freedom of movement and migration between Europe and the UK.

In a night that redrew the political landscape once again, the UK Independence Party (UKIP) - instrumental in campaigning for Brexit - lost millions of voters, prompting its leader Paul Nuttall to quit. Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson said she had demanded a "categoric assurance" that gay rights would not be affected by a deal with the DUP, which strongly opposes marriage equality.