United Kingdom

    Heidi Allen has become the first Conservative MP to say publicly that she believes Theresa May will be gone in the next six months. The South Cambridgeshire MP said she does not believe Ms May will remain Prime Minister "indefinitely" and said her premiership may now be a period of transition as the country negotiates Brexit. She told LBC's Iain Dale: If this was any other election in any other time in our history you could say yes the Prime Minister needs to stand down but this is different of course because we are about to start negotiating Brexit so that puts an entirely different complexion on that. We do need a Prime Minister at this moment. Ms Allen, who is an outspoken backbench rebel, blamed the party's failure to win a majority squarely on the campaign. She said s...

    When no political party wins enough seats to secure a majority in the House of Commons, the outcome is known as a hung parliament. With 650 MPs sitting in Westminster, a party needs to win at least 326 seats to be sure of a majority. The 2017 general election exit poll suggests no party is on course to pass that threshold; the Conservatives are forecast to win 314 seats and Labour 266. What happens with a hung Parliament? The UK’s first-past-the-post electoral system means hung parliaments rarely happen in Britain, but it was the case following the 1974 election and most recently, of course, in 2010. In the case of a hung parliament, the leader of the party with the most seats is given the opportunity to try to form a government. This can take two forms: one option is a fo...

    Lib Dem Nick Clegg has lost his seat in Sheffield Hallam in the most unpredictable election night in decades. The former Lib Dem leader who served as Deputy Prime Minister in the 2010 coalition government saw Labour eat into his majority in 2015. He lost by 2,125 votes to Labour newcomer Jared O'Mara. As the ballots were counted, local sources were suggesting many of the traditionally Tory voters in the constituency who usually vote Lib Dem tactically to keep Labour out had returned to the Conservative Party. A local Labour source said: Tories that backed him there last time won't do it again this time, mainly because they're Brexiteers. The rise and fall of Nick Clegg Clegg looked devastated as he said in a concession speech: I’ve never shirked from political battles, I’v...

    Labour's Tulip Siddiq has accused Prime Minister Theresa May of wasting time "scaremongering" the British public during the election campaign rather than focusing on the vital Brexit negotiations. The MP for Hampstead and Kilburn, who is bidding to hold her seat in the face of a Conservative challenge, accused Mrs May squandering months of vital EU talks with an unnecessary election. Speaking as she arrived at the Camden count, she said it was good that, according to exit polls, the Tories appear to have failed to deliver the landslide victory they were seeking. All I could say is that's good, because she has underestimated the British public, said Ms Siddiq. People don't like scaremongering which is what she tried to do. It was an unnecessary election at a time when we sh...

    Millions of people are heading to polling stations across the UK to cast their vote. But what can and can't you do in there? Most British people are familiar with what goes on inside a polling station. You march in, possibly brandishing your polling card, you give your name and address, someone finds you on a list and gives you a ballot paper. You then head off to a booth to use your stubby pencil to mark your X. In 2015 we published a guide to what was and wasn't allowed in the polling station. But some issues have arisen since then so here's an update. Can you take a selfie? There's nothing in the law that specifically bans taking photos, but the Electoral Commission very strongly discourages any photography inside a polling station, primarily because of complex laws abo...

    On 8 June, the UK will go the polls in the general election. Here's how to vote. When can I vote? The election takes place on 8 June, between 07:00 and 22:00 BST. If you are in a queue at 22:00 BST, you will be guaranteed the opportunity to vote. What are we voting for? The general election will decide which party (or coalition of parties) forms the next UK government. There are 650 seats in the UK Parliament's House of Commons up for grabs. How do I find my polling station? If you are on the electoral register, you should have received a polling card through the post which has your name, polling number and the address of your polling station printed on it. Polling stations are usually set up in public buildings such as schools, community centres and village halls near whe...

    When prime minister Theresa May announced the “snap” general election, her Conservative party made the bet that the main issue on voters’ mind would be Brexit. More than 75% of members of parliament (MPs) voted to remain in the EU, but nearly 60% of constituencies voted to leave. If May were to win the election, she would not just have a majority in the parliament but also the moral high ground as she went into negotiations of UK’s divorce with the EU. At the time, the election seemed a good bet. May had just triggered Article 50, the formal process to start the process of exiting the bloc. The members of the opposition Labour party were struggling to defend their own leader, Jeremy Corbyn. And Conservatives had a massive 20-point lead in the polls against Labour. Much has...

    British Prime Minister Theresa May is on track to win a 64-seat majority in Thursday's national election, a model by businessman and former Conservative Party donor Michael Ashcroft showed on Tuesday. Ashcroft, who has funded a significant amount of opinion polling in recent years, said his model now pointed to a greater majority for May's Conservatives than it had on June 2, when it indicated a majority of 60. As always, it is important to emphasise that the Ashcroft Model deals with probabilities not predictions, meaning the actual result may well fall either side of these estimates, Ashcroft said, adding that model results were sensitive to assumptions about which groups of voters turned out. Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May reacts during an election campaign event ...

    Britain’s opposition Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, speaks at a rally ahead of the forthcoming general election, in Glasgow, Britain June 7, 2017. Britain entered the final day of campaigning ahead of a parliamentary election that will define its approach to leaving the European Union but has been overshadowed by two militant attacks in as many weeks. Prime Minister Theresa May unexpectedly called the June 8 election seven weeks ago, seeking to boost her parliamentary majority ahead of the start of Brexit negotiations and to win more time to deal with the impact of the EU divorce. But the campaign has seen a number of unexpected twists, including the deadliest militant attack in Britain since 2005 and a sharp contraction in May’s once commanding lead of over 20 percen...

    Theresa May has declared she is prepared to rip up human rights laws to impose new restrictions on terror suspects, as she sought to gain control over the security agenda just 36 hours before the polls open. The prime minister said she was looking at how to make it easier to deport foreign terror suspects and how to increase controls on extremists where it is thought they present a threat but there is not enough evidence to prosecute them. The last-ditch intervention comes after days of pressure on May over the policing cuts and questions over intelligence failures, following terror attacks on London Bridge, Manchester and Westminster. She said: But I can tell you a few of the things I mean by that: I mean longer prison sentences for people convicted of terrorist offences....