May: the walking dead
May attempted to resign once the results came in but her party refused. Labour’s revitalised Jeremy Corbin sees fresh elections on the horizon
Theresa May is going through a political hell after what has been described as the worst election campaign the country can remember. In just a month and a half she managed to reduce a 22 point advantage over Labour to just two points when she in fact had called the elections believing she would sweep the opposition off the board. Her plan to gain a stronger bargaining position in the coming Brexit negotiations with the UK has backfired completely and to stay in power she has had to resort to asking for support from the Northern Irish Unionist party. Few in the Conservative Party believe she will be in Downing Street in six month’s time. An internal poll shows that 57% of the party members believe she should resign. May did in fact attempt to resign once the results were in but the party hierarchy stopped her. Boris Johnson has been tipped as a possible new leader in rumours which he says are “nonsense.”
On the contrary, the elections have led to Labour’s resurrection. Yesterday a revitalised Jeremy Corbin, who mocked May during the campaign, said he would oppose the nomination of the Tory leader as PM and asked other political forces to support a proposal for an alternative government with him as prime minister. Corbyn, in any case, predicts elections before the end of the year.
To ease the pressure on the Conservatives there have already been a number of resignations of key figures in the party and government. What many in the party are concerned about is the fallout from having to depend on the Northern Ireland Unionists a second time, an alliance Conservatives are not keen to repeat.