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British Election Was Full of Surprises From Beginning to End
Right from the start, the British election was all about the unexpected: Prime Minister Theresa May caught Britons off-guard in April when she announced an election three years before the next scheduled vote.
Mrs. May said she needed a bigger majority for her Conservative Party in Parliament to bolster her hand during negotiations with the European Union over Britain’s exit, known as Brexit, and initial polls suggested that she was well positioned to get what she wanted.
Instead, her campaign began to falter. Mrs. May said that she alone could lead a “strong and stable” Britain, but her missteps led some critics to describe her as “weak and wobbly.”
At the same time, Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour chief who was once seen as too far left to be a credible leader, found his footing on the campaign trail and staged a resurgence.
The Liberal Democrats had hoped to turn the election into essentially a do-over of the Brexit referendum, but that tactic seemed to fall flat, and the party failed to gather much steam.
The same could be said for the far-right U.K. Independence Party, which has imploded since achieving its primary goal of Britain’s leaving the European Union.
Along the way, campaigning was suspended twice to honor the victims of two terrorist attacks, one in Manchester and one in London.
But the biggest surprise came from the voters on Thursday: Mrs. May not only failed to increase her majority but lost it entirely, while Mr. Corbyn and the Labour Party picked up dozens of seats in the 650-member House of Commons.
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