London: British Prime Minister Theresa May faced mounting pressure today to resign after her Conservative party failed to muster a simple majority in the crucial polls she had called three years ahead of schedule hoping to boost her negotiating powers during the complex Brexit talks.

London: British Prime Minister Theresa May faced mounting pressure today to resign after her Conservative party failed to muster a simple majority in the crucial polls she had called three years ahead of schedule hoping to boost her negotiating powers during the complex Brexit talks.     

Though the Conservatives emerged as the single largest party in the election for Britain's 650-seat parliament, the impressive show by the opposition Labour Party led by Jeremy Corbyn is seen as a humiliation for May to continue in her position. According to British media, the results are a humiliation for May, who chose to call the election to try to strengthen her hand in talks with the European Union on pulling the UK out of the single market.  

The Brexit talks were set to begin on June 19, but the results - a sort of turnaround in fortunes for both major political parties - have thrown that timetable into doubt.  With a handful of seats yet to be declared, Conservatives won 314 and Labour secured 261, leaving neither party anywhere close to the 326 seats required for an overall majority.

 Though May won her Maidenhead seat in south-east England with 37,780 votes, she faced pressure to resign after losing her parliamentary majority unexpectedly.  All pre-election opinion poll forecasts of May's strong lead with projections of a 50 to 70 seat majority have proved far-fetched with the Corbyn-led Labour doing far better than expected.  It had been classified as a Brexit election and the result is being seen as giving hope to the 48 per cent who had voted to remain in the EU in the June 2016 referendum and a rejection of May's so-called "hard Brexit" stance. PTI