Rt Hon Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Labour Party, UK. Chatham House / Flickr. Some rights reserved.
The UK was thrown into collective shock last night when early exit polls announced that The Conservatives, while still the biggest single party, had fallen short of a parliamentary majority. The so-called Corbyn surge, which pundits have tried to spin as a fiction invented to sell papers, revealed itself as more than a collection of .gifs and twitter hashtags, emerging as a real political force. It was a moment of profound embarrassment for media types and the first taste of victory for a generation who had seen year after year of Conservative victory.
As the final results trickle in – amidst widespread calls for Theresa May’s resignation – it is now confirmed that neither major party will have an easy time forming a government. The Tories are ahead with 318 seats, Labour have an extraordinary 261 seats (many final polls anticipated around 200) and the Lib Dems trail on 12. These elections were supposed to provide ‘stability’ for the nation, and it is a line that Theresa May is sticking to without irony this morning. The reality is that this disaster is her own fault. She called an election in order to strengthen her hand, failed to campaign, and then lost her majority. Parliament is ‘hung’ and she will never recover from this blow.
