British Prime Minister Theresa May now stands alone. Her majority has been lost, her two closest advisers have resigned, and her authority has evaporated. This was not supposed to happen. May called a snap election in order to become a transformative prime minister with a landslide majority. Instead she is in office but not in power. It is proof of how British politics continues to be extremely volatile in the age of Brexit.
When this election began, many were predicting an electoral realignment. It has certainly done that but in unexpected ways. The collapse of the UK Independence Party has marked a return to two-party politics. Many expected this would allow the Conservative Party to make a major breakthrough in pro-Brexit, working-class communities in England and Wales. The Conservatives certainly benefited from the UKIP collapse as their vote share rose to 42.4 percent, an increase of 5.5 percent since the 2015 general election. But many UKIP voters in the North and the Midlands defied expectations and returned to Labour.
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