"She's then got to present a programme to parliament", he said. May had been expected to win comfortably.
It seems as though she will be hanging on as leader, but be clear why: because the timing of the Brexit talks means senior Tories don't think it wise to plunge the party into another leadership election - for the moment.
The result was bad news for the Scottish National Party, which by early Friday had lost about 20 of its 54 seats.
Opinion polls had suggested she had a commanding lead over Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party, but Corbyn will be judged more of a victor than May.
In a night of high drama, May's party shed seats to Jeremy Corbyn's Labour, which surpassed expectations, leaving the Conservatives short of a working majority by just eight seats. The Conservatives are forecast to win 314 seats, followed by Labour with 266 seats.
May, who is the second female Prime Minister for the United Kingdom after Margaret Thatcher, didn't win elections in 2016. The BBC reports that the Tories lost 12, while Labour-the party of Corbyn-gained 29. The elections weren't encouraged by May at first as she insisted on waiting for the official election in 2020; it was deemed as a destabilizer for the country by several parties.
May will also need the support of the socially conservative, pro-Brexit Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) which won 10 seats in Northern Ireland.
Qatar Airways urges UN action against Gulf blockade
Qatar's port authority says its cargo will go through Sohar, as well as Oman's port at Salalah. The UAE and Bahrain have signed the convention.
Niblett said: "Having made Brexit the rationale for the election, she nevertheless made no effort during the campaign to explain how she would manage the negotiation or what a successful deal would look like".
May's gamble of calling snap polls backfired after the British electorate delivered a hung Parliament, forcing her to seek the support of a small Northern Irish party for staying in power, as the country braces for hard Brexit talks. Conservatives continue to be the largest party in the UK. It will be more hard for a Conservative government to walk away from the European Union without a trade deal, as May has threatened to do.
"Our two parties have enjoyed a strong relationship over many years", she said.
One of the lead European Union negotiators, Guy Verhofstadt, criticized May on Twitter, writing: "Yet another own goal, after Cameron now May, will make already complex negotiations even more complicated".
Her campaign unravelled after a policy U-turn on care for the elderly, while Corbyn's old-school socialist platform and more impassioned campaigning style won wider support than anyone had foreseen, notably from young voters, say analysts.
The prime minister called what she thought would be a Brexit-focused election, but the issue was quickly overshadowed by security as two deadly terror attacks, in Manchester and London, struck during the campaign period.
Comments