Analysis: May's failed election gamble creates chaos

Jane Onyanga-Omara | USA TODAY

LONDON — She gambled and lost. Now, British Prime Minister Theresa May faces tough talks on exiting the European Union and playing a role on the world stage in a weakened position.

May’s “strong and stable” mantra during the parliamentary election campaign is now anything but, as she licks her wounds after her attempt to bolster her political strength in the run-up to the difficult Brexit negotiations this month backfired.

May’s Conservative Party had counted on a resounding triumph in Thursday’s general election. Instead, it lost 12 seats and failed to clinch a majority of 326 in the House of Commons. That has forced her to govern as a minority party allied with Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which won 10 seats and can provide a majority on key votes.

“Political instability at home could mean yet more uncertainty abroad,” said Adrian Pabst, a political expert at the University of Kent.

Now, he said, the Conservative Party “will struggle to conduct the Brexit negotiations. And it will limit the U.K.'s power in international affairs, including trying to influence the Trump administration or working with the EU to fight Islamic terrorism.”

Across the English Channel, senior EU officials fretted that the election result could further delay the divorce process, which will take two years, or result in a poor outcome for everyone.

"We need a government that can act," Guenther Oettinger, the German member of the EU executive, told the Deutschlandfunk radio station. "With a weak negotiating partner, there's the danger that the negotiations will turn out badly."

Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament’s Brexit representative, tweeted that the election "will make already complex negotiations even more complicated."

The small Northern Ireland party that will work with May backed Brexit ahead of the referendum last year but its leader Arlene Foster has spoken out against a "hard Brexit,” which May favors. It means the U.K. would leave the EU’s single market without the benefit of unrestricted trade.

Brexit Secretary David Davis added to the confusion by suggesting in an interview on Sky News that the Conservatives loss of their majority meant the public had not endorsed their pledge to take Britain out of the single market.

Michael Geary, a fellow at the Wilson Center think tank, said the election has “thrown the country into disarray.” The DUP “will be looking for a better Brexit deal for Northern Ireland, especially on issues like a soft border with the Republic of Ireland and commitments to strengthen the union with London," he said.

May’s predecessor, David Cameron — who opposed Brexit — resigned after the referendum to leave won with 52% of the vote. On Friday, May faced calls to step aside from critics who included Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, her main rival. However the BBC and other media reported that she had no plans to step down.

We don't know when Brexit talks start. We know when they must end. Do your best to avoid a "no deal" as result of "no negotiations". #GE2017 — Donald Tusk (@eucopresident) June 9, 2017

The formal negotiations for Brexit are due to start on June 19 and be completed by March 2019.

Donald Tusk, president of the EU Council of European leaders, issued a statement Friday saying: “Our shared responsibility and urgent task now is to conduct the negotiations on the UK's withdrawal from the European Union in the best possible spirit, securing the least disruptive outcome for our citizens, businesses and countries after March 2019. The timeframe set by Article 50 of the Treaty leaves us with no time to lose."

Yet another own goal, after Cameron now May, will make already complex negotiations even more complicated. — Guy Verhofstadt (@GuyVerhofstadt) June 9, 2017

Jonathan Golub, an academic at the school of politics and international relations at Reading University, said the election results will not resolve any of the main challenges facing the U.K. or its political parties.

“In the short term it will certainly benefit Jeremy Corbyn more than Theresa May," he said of the Labour leader, who performed better than expected, mobilizing large crowds of supporters in the days before the election.

"Corbyn emerges stronger than ever, May emerges commanding the most seats but weaker than ever, with absolutely no gain in ‘mandate’ and revealed as craven and cowardly,” Golub said.

“She will take the blame for wasting the country's time and the government's resources on a pointless election instead of developing a popular and viable plan for Brexit.”

RELATED COVERAGE: