from Statista.com
— this post authored by Dyfed Loesche
The Conservatives under Prime Minister Theresa May have squandered a comfortable hold over their closest rival, the Labour Party.
The Conservatives lost 12 seats (possibly 13) in the House of Commons in the general election last week. After 649 seats of 650 (one for each constituency) were allocated on Friday morning, the Conservatives stood to be awarded 318 seats (updated) – not enough to win!
In contrast, Labour made late but big gains, also a personal win for contested party boss Jeremy Corbyn, facing many critics in his own tribe. His party gained 29 seats and was awarded 261 seats in total.
The outcome is a hefty setback for Prime Minister May who had called the early election, hoping to be awarded a solid mandate to go into hard Brexit negotiations with the EU. They are scheduled to start in eleven days. The election outcome could be read as a vote for more subtle Brexit negotiations, as May had promised to aim for a hard Brexit, leaving the common EU market.
When, as in this case, none of the parties get the 326 seats (half of the 650 total seats plus one) needed to win, it’s called a hung parliament, which also was the case in the election 2010.
This chart shows results of the general election in the United Kingdom 2017
You will find more statistics at Statista.
