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What seemed like a long shot at the start of Britain’s general election may actually be happening: A national exit poll suggests that the Conservatives, who expected to expand their majority in Parliament, may have lost it instead.
That would make it a hung Parliament. Here is what that could mean.
What is a hung Parliament?
A hung Parliament occurs when no party has won a majority of the seats in the House of Commons. That could mean that no party would have a clear and outright mandate to form the new government.
Prime Minister Theresa May called for this general election in April — three years early — because she thought her Conservative Party would win handily. It may not have.
The Conservatives previously had a majority of 331 seats in the House of Commons. They needed to win at least 326 seats. They are projected to have won 314 seats.
Who would be the prime minister?
Mrs. May would still be the prime minister tomorrow. But her position would become very precarious.
If she could retain the support of her own party, she would have the right to remain in office until the first meeting of the new Parliament, according to the Cabinet Manual, which lays out the rules and norms of the British government. The new Parliament is expected to meet early next week.
What would happen then?
If she proved to have no overall majority, between now and then, Mrs. May would try to shore up support from lawmakers, which would mean wooing other parties in the hope of creating a power-sharing alliance that would command at least 326 seats.
That could mean a coalition government, in which other parties get some seats in the cabinet, or more likely it could mean a “confidence and supply” arrangement, in which smaller parties agree to support Mrs. May in exchange for her support on specific policy goals they hold dear. Those parties would not get cabinet seats, though.
Mrs. May may find allies in two parties in Northern Ireland, the Democratic Unionist Party, which supported Britain’s exit from the European Union, or “Brexit,” and the Ulster Unionist Party, which now accepts it.
But she could face hostility from larger parties like the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish National Party, which are left-leaning and anti-Brexit. If it becomes clear that a majority of Parliament members are unlikely to support Mrs. May, the Cabinet Manual states that she is expected to resign.
What would happen if Theresa May resigned?
If Mrs. May failed to form a Conservative-led coalition government, the second-largest party in Parliament, the Labour Party, would then have the right to try to form a power-sharing government of its own.
That could mean Labour would offer potential cabinet seats or its own “confidence and supply” deals to smaller parties.
It might find a receptive audience in the Scottish National Party or the Liberal Democrats, but that is by no means certain. Both are more strongly opposed to Brexit than Labour and would probably demand concessions on that and other issues.
If the Labour Party succeeded in forming a government, then Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader derided by critics as a far-left radical, would become the next British prime minister. That seemed deeply unlikely at the start of this campaign.
Has this ever happened before?
Yes, it has. The general election in 2010 produced a hung Parliament, which led, after intense negotiations, to the country’s first coalition government since World War II.
That coalition brought together the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, which differed on many issues, in an awkward alliance led by Prime Minister David Cameron, a Conservative.
That coalition government remained in power until the Conservatives won an outright majority of 331 seats in the 2015 election.
©2017 The New York Times News Service
