May digs in as U.K. premier after election debacle

Theresa May launched a desperate fightback to hold on to her premiership following a disastrous election that cost her party its parliamentary majority and with it the right to rule the U.K. on its own.

Faced with calls to resign, May moved fast to bolster her position. She held talks Friday morning with Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, reaching a quick understanding before planning to seek Queen Elizabeth II’s permission to form a government. With votes still being counted, May’s officials said she plans on naming Cabinet ministers later in the day.

The premier is fighting for her political life after she gambled on an early U.K. election and lost, plunging the country’s government into chaos and throwing doubt on talks to leave the European Union. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and some in her own Conservative Party are calling on her to quit after Thursday’s election resulted in a hung Parliament.

Corbyn made his own bid to govern, saying that Labour was “ready to serve this country.”

May opted for a snap election to boost her parliamentary majority and strengthen her hand in the Brexit talks due to begin in just 10 days. Instead, her Conservatives were on course to win 318 seats, down from the 330 she held at the start of the campaign and short of the 326 seats she needs for an overall majority. Labour will take 261 seats, a gain of 29 seats, according to BBC projections with just one seat left to declare.

While fresh elections remain a possibility, an alliance with the pro-Brexit Democratic Unionist Party is the most obvious route to continued Conservative rule. May will visit Buckingham Palace at 12:30 p.m. London time.

It’s still far from clear whether May will be able to hold on and lead the U.K. into talks with the EU that will determine the country’s future prosperity.

“At this time, more than anything else, this country needs a period of stability,” May said in her electoral district of Maidenhead, west of London, her voice at times shaking. “If, as the indications have shown, the Conservative Party has won the most votes and the most seats, it will be incumbent on us to ensure that period of stability and that’s what we will do.”

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