May Struggles to Hang On as Election Plunges Britain Into Political Chaos

After calling a snap election in April in anticipation of a landslide, she ended up with an electoral train wreck, in which her Conservative Party actually lost its parliamentary majority.

Instead, the result has sown confusion and division in British ranks, just days before negotiations are due to start on June 19.

May, who went into the election with a reputation for quiet competence, was criticized for a lackluster campaigning style and for a plan to force elderly people to pay more for their care, a proposal her opponents dubbed the "dementia tax".

Britain's best-selling Sun newspaper said senior members of her party had vowed to get rid of May, but would wait at least six months because they were anxious that a leadership contest now could propel Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn into power.

More than anything else, what must worry Theresa May is the impending negotiations with the European Union for an honourable and potentially not too damaging an exit from its membership. Some members of Parliament in May's Tory party and the rival Labour Party favor a softer Brexit, in which the United Kingdom might maintain a much closer relationship with the EU.

Internationally, the election outcome may further complicate relations with leaders whose nations will remain in the European Union, especially since the continent's most consequential politicians - German Chancellor Angela Merkel and new French President Emmanuel Macron - are staunch advocates for an even more integrated Europe.

Scottish National Party leader Nicola Sturgeon could be asked to form a coalition to avoid a minority government

Corbyn said the result means "politics has changed" and voters have rejected Conservative austerity. She had been executing a political strategy that prevented the Brexit debate from being reopened.

Newspaper headlines saw her as just clinging on. He said it was impossible to predict whether she would still be prime minister at the end of the year.

Owen Paterson, a senior Conservative lawmaker, said "let's see how it pans out", when asked about May's future.

A very personalized, nearly presidential style of campaigning has contributed to the Conservative Party's loss of support, said Mark Goodwin, lecturer at the department of political science and global studies at the University of Birmingham in England.

"We don't know when Brexit talks start", Tusk tweeted.

CGTN's Dan Williams reports on a dramatic day in London. It said Britain was "effectively leaderless" and the "country all but ungovernable".

The Guardian, which backed Labour, said May and the Conservatives had gone from "hubris to humiliation" during the election campaign.

May's office has already said that the senior Cabinet members - Treasury chief Philip Hammond, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Home Secretary Amber Rudd - will keep their current jobs, but she is expected to reshuffle the lower ranks of ministers.

A record 51 elected members are from ethnic minorities, including several of South Asian descent, and Britain now has its first member of parliament of Palestinian descent, Layla Moran.

May remains defiant on Brexit, vowing to deliver the will of the people.

As a result, she will be forced to rely on the support of the Democratic Unionist Party's (DUP) ten MPs - raising the prospect that the Conservatives could struggle to pass key legislation such as a Queen's Speech or budget.

The DUP will doubtless extract a huge price from Theresa May, in return for their support.