From the start, an election called by May when polls gave her a commanding lead did not go to plan. "It appears clear they were determined this time to make a difference and vote".
With results in from all 650 House of Commons seats after Thursday's vote, May's bruised Conservatives had 318 - short of the 326 they needed for an outright majority and well down from the 330 seats they had before May's roll of the electoral dice. Though the biggest single victor, they failed to reach the 326-mark they would need to command a parliamentary majority. While the Conservatives have in 2017 won a larger share of the vote at 42.4%, benefitting from the decline of Ukip in particular, there were not enough votes in the key marginals to offset a surge in support for Labour, which secured 40%, up from 30.4% in 2015.
With talks of unprecedented complexity on Britain's departure from the European Union due to start in just 10 days' time, it was unclear who would form the next government and what the fundamental direction of Brexit would be. Conservative seats are now more heavily concentrated in Brexit-supporting areas and most of the party's new English MPs will represent voters who want to leave the European Union as quickly and cleanly as possible. The Conservatives are hoping to partner in some sort of coalition with Northern Ireland's DUP, taking them to 328 seats, a reduced majority from before the election but one which would allow May to form a government.
Former Conservative minister Anna Soubry, who just held onto her seat, said May was "in a very hard place" following a "dreadful campaign". "The mandate she's got is lost votes, lost Conservatives seats, lost votes, lost support and lost confidence", said Corbyn, who held his seat after winning more than 73 per cent of the vote in his constituency.
"I think that so long as she does do that and provides that coalition then she should remain leader and prime minister".
"The irony of this is that Theresa May is calling this a certainty government and talking about how it's delivering certainty", said Brian Klaas, a fellow in comparative politics at the London School of Economics.
"Evidently, the confidence of citizens that many things will get better and easier after leaving the European Union is waning - even among Brexit supporters", Mr Juergen Hardt, the foreign affairs spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel's parliamentary caucus, said in a statement.
Corbyn said he and Labour are ready if May should fail.
British PM May says will govern with "friends" for successful Brexit deal
Frankly I can not see them accepting May, or whoever takes over from her, even threatening a hard Brexit as a negotiating trick. And former Conservative minister Anna Soubry said May should take personal responsibility for a "dreadful" campaign.
But having lost her majority in the House of Commons, she finds herself in exactly the reverse position: her authority within the party is shot, and she (or whoever follows her as Conservative leader) will be wholly dependent on the grace and favor of other parties to gain approval for whatever deal the United Kingdom can strike with the EU.
EU President Donald Tusk urged Britain not to delay the Brexit talks, warning that time was running out to reach a divorce deal to end four decades of membership.
"We need a government that can act", he told German radio. "She put her mark absolutely on this campaign", she said. The pound hit an eight-week low against the dollar and its lowest levels in seven months versus the euro. Following Brexit, we now have a hung parliament. "My gut feeling is no - she's good at governing but not at campaigning". But she's been humiliated and massively weakened.
That did not help May, who had overseen cuts in police numbers during six years in her previous job as interior minister.
Should the deal break down, May could seek support from other small parties-the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish Nationalists-but they will be considerably more hostile, as both are opposed to Brexit. A relative Westminster outsider, Davidson could be seen as a clean break by the party.
An exit poll for the NME showed a big increase in voter turnout among the young.
The campaign had played out differently in Scotland, the main fault line being the SNP's drive for a second referendum on independence from Britain, having lost a plebiscite in 2014.
SNP leader and First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said it had been a disappointing night for her party, which lost seats to the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats.
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