Talking about the results of the vote, Dr Mike Finn, a researcher in British politics at the University of Warwick, told Sputnik that the results were unexpected to him and to everybody else in the UK.
“Theresa May has gambled to try and secure her political position and it backfired enormously. The leader of the Labor party, Jeremy Corbyn, feels vindicated as he has completely defied expectations, so I think no one saw that coming,” Finn said.
He further said that if May is not finished now, because it looks like she is going to try and form a coalition with the Democratic Unionist Party, she will be finished in the “not so distant future” because “it’s a desperate situation for her and May’s credibility among her own party members has been totally destroyed,” he said.
Talking about the election campaign, Finn said that there was a lot of equal treatment for Jeremy Corbyn in the press and that made his favorability go up and May was faced with scrutiny, which also had not happened before.
“She [May] is not a charismatic politician and beyond that, there is also the policy issue,” Finn said.
Finn further spoke about the Conservative’s manifesto and how it was a complete disaster.
Talking about why the Labor Party got such incredible support, Finn said that it is because Jeremy Corbyn has offered policies that are very relatable for the population at this moment, such as the nationalization of railways, increased spending on health services and effective redistribution of taxes.
Another reason for the Labor Party’s success according to Finn is that “they appealed to the youth directly and it was done very successfully.”
Sputnik also spoke to Mark Garnett, a politics professor at Lancaster University, who said the results of the general election in Britain really brought out the younger voters to the frontline.
“Young people have started to vote now almost as reliably or certainly with a much bigger proportion so it’s a demographic revolution in British politics,” Garnett said.
He also said that May doesn’t have a very good instinct at political campaigning.
There were so many mistakes that she made such as the policy decisions that she had to withdraw from; she also didn’t take part in a televised debate with the Labor Party’s leader and the public began to feel that this election was necessary.
Looking at whether she will resign due to the results, Garnett said, “If she resigned it is very hard to see how she could be replaced, so it would have to be some kind of a leadership election in the Conservative Party.”
However, he said that England’s tradition of politics and international markets require stability.
“She hasn’t obviously lost the election; she still leads the biggest party in the UK. So she has a duty to give it a sense of continuity. I do wonder if her instinct was to give it up immediately because her position has become so weak,” Garnett said.
The analyst said that some people in Britain feel that the only way out of this chaos is to have another general election.
“It really is a horrible mess and amidst this, the only thing you can do is to say that you have got us into this mess so you can stay on until we find a way out of it,” Garnett concluded.
On Thursday, the United Kingdom held a snap general election, which resulted in a hung Parliament as the Conservatives failed to secure an overall majority in the House of Commons and fell short of the required 326 seats.
UK Foreign Minister Boris Johnson expressed Sunday support to the country’s Prime Minister Theresa May after reports that several cabinet members asked Johnson to replace May.
The comment comes in the wake of reports saying that five UK senior cabinet members expressed their loyalty to Johnson and wanted him to become the UK prime minister.
