Theresa May shuns calls to resign after shock result.

Wararka Maanta

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.

 

May had called the snap vote in April to strengthen her mandate ahead of negotiations with the European Union to quit the bloc.

 

“As I said many times during the campaign, I had wanted to achieve a larger majority, but that was not the result we secured,” May, who had previously pledged not to hold an early election, said on Friday.

 

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

 

The Conservatives won 318 seats, or 48.9 percent of the vote, while Labour won 262, or 40.3 percent – an increase from the 2015 result which saw the left-wing party win 232 seats.

 

As May announced forming a minority government with the support of the small Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), allowing her to cling to her position, a resurgent Labour Party celebrated as it outperformed expectations following a successful campaign led by Jeremy Corbyn.

“Labour fought an energetic, hopeful campaign,” Al Jazeera’s Barnaby Phillips, reporting from Britain’s capital, London, said. “Corbyn promised an end to austerity, attracting large crowds.”

 

Corbyn was among those who called for May to resign after the results were announced.

 

“Now, the prime minister has no authority and the Conservatives have no mandate,” he said in a video message posted to Twitter on Friday.