Friday, June 9, 2017

Britain Votes

Last night ... The British parliamentary election happened today and, if exit polls are to be believed, PM May lost seats. Whether she lost enough to lose the majority is unclear at this writing. More later.

Today ... May did lose the majority, calling the snap election was a really bad choice on her part. I expect her to resign later today. My analysis (from too far away to be meaningful) is the Brits blamed her party for not stopping the three recent acts of terrorism. I doubt they believe other parties could do better but needed to punish the Conservatives for not trying harder.

The Tories still have the largest single bloc of seats in Parliament. I suppose they'll try to put together a coalition but it will probably be weak as just about every party except the Conservatives is anti-Brexit, for one reason or another.

In many ways the biggest story of the evening was the absolute pasting the Scottish National Party took, losing 21 of their 56 seats in Parliament. Brave talk about another referendum on independence rings hollow now. The big gainers in Scotland were Tory candidates. Labour which once dominated picked up a few, as did the Lib Dems.

Perhaps this was a "vote against" election; the victims: Conservatives and SNP. The beneficiaries were whoever was left, mostly Labour but also Lib Dem and the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland.

Later ... May says she won't resign, but perhaps form a coalition with the main Protestant party in northern Ireland, the DUP. As I write she has yet to go to the Queen to ask permission to form a government.