After the hung parliament in this month’s general election, Antony Tucker suggests where Britain goes from here.

By Antony Tucker

Having only just scraped back into power, Theresa May is pictured here showing the Commons the approximate size of her new majority.

It’s over. The election Theresa May promised wouldn’t happen has happened and her gamble has failed. No matter how she tries to spin it, the reality is that Britain rejected her leadership and that the Conservatives are hanging onto power by a thread. We in Labour may not have won, but there are signs of life that show how we can go on to do better next time. More widely, this election will have big effects on Brexit, the Union and the shape of British politics for years to come.

First — why did the Tories lose so many seats? One reason is too much reliance on the supposed popularity of their leadership before the election was even called. Theresa May is still Prime Minister, but her micro-managing, broken promises, and a shambolic campaign have used up all her political capital. It turns out that no one likes a dementia tax, police cuts or taking away children’s lunches. Hemorrhaging seats in England and Wales, only gains north of the border saved the Conservatives from total disaster. Building a personality cult around someone who doesn’t have a personality is a bad idea, and May’s reputation as a safe pair of hands has evaporated as a result.

The night went better than expected for Labour too, with massive youth turnout showing that we have learnt from the EU referendum and will not let our future be decided by others. It’s important to remember we still lost, and are back to about where we were in 2010; there are eighty more seats to go before we can wield power and put our principles into practice. Nonetheless, everyone in the party fought a strong, positive and united campaign around a popular manifesto. By abandoning his lifelong opposition to NATO and Trident, and by supporting a balancing of the books, Jeremy Corbyn has helped our party by abandoning gesture politics and accepted the need for pragmatism at all times.

It was an interesting night for the Union too. The massive losses of the SNP were good to see, although it would have been better to see Labour gains instead of the Tories’ progress. Hopefully, Scottish voters are seeing the nationalists for what they are — a single issue party willing to wreck their country’s prosperity to achieve their pipedreams. The involvement of the DUP in government — filled with pro-life homophobes who think the world began in 4000BC — is a sign of how desperate May really is. This might have worrying effects on the Good Friday settlement: with Stormont deadlocked and direct rule a real possibility, the DUP’s influence in Westminster may let them call the shots in Northern Ireland despite not having anything like a majority in the Assembly. This is a real risk, and is typical of the cynical games the Tories play with the fabric of our Union.

What is next? It looks like we are entering a new era of two party politics: in 2015, Labour and the Conservatives together won 67% of the vote, whereas this time, it is over 82%. With the Liberal Democrats returning to protest party status, UKIP gone and the SNP on the run for now, the choice for the public has not been so clear cut for decades. For Labour, the challenge will be holding onto the support of those who don’t always vote and keeping youth turnout high. As for the leadership, Jeremy is still 68; but he can leave on his own terms now, and hopefully be able to build a Shadow Cabinet with the diversity of people and ideas we need to win — all the more important with another election this year a real possibility.

Big changes across the country, not least for Theresa May and Nicola Sturgeon, with a big retreat for blue and yellow alike.

For Theresa May and her struggling government, the challenges are far greater. The DUP in power will be a poisoned chalice: for the uninitiated, they’re like what would happen if a convention of bigots got crashed by some creationist throwbacks whilst the circus was in town. Even with this unholy alliance, the single figure majority May will wield may not even be able to pass the budget in the autumn, triggering another election she will likely lose. Equally, this approach will alienate the liberal wing of the Conservatives, who may yet launch a bid to save Britain’s membership of the Single Market. May’s entire pitch was based around her desire to get a bigger majority so she could negotiate Brexit with confidence; instead, she put party before country and has been found out.

This was not a victory for Labour, but it is a brighter dawn than any of us dared expect. May’s personal credibility has been shredded and her wafer thin majority will make governing almost impossible. With a revived opposition, we can avoid a botched Brexit and force concessions out of the government at every turn. May has no one to blame for this other than herself and now she will have to live with the consequences. For the rest of us, we can be relieved that in some ways our efforts paid off. Now is only the beginning; with the government on the ropes, we cannot afford a single slip or mistake in holding those in power to account. There can be no lapse back into protest politics: ruthless pragmatism is needed so we can put our positive alternative into practice. Let’s hope this taste of success can make us hungrier for the real thing.