Jonathan Powell, the chief negotiator in Northern Ireland between 1997 and 2007, has grave doubts about the likelihood of success for the Tory / DUP confidence agreement. He believes the deal puts decades of hard work in Ireland at risk:
If Mrs May depends on the DUP – Ian Paisley’s party, not the old Official Unionists, who used in the past to work with the Tories – to form a government, it will be impossible for it to be even-handed. The other parties in Northern Ireland will know that the unionists can pull the plug at any stage and hold the government hostage.
If the British government cannot play the role of mediator it is not obvious who can. A previous attempt to use a distinguished American diplomat failed because only the British and Irish governments have the levers to cajole the parties into an agreement. Failure to reach agreement will catapult Northern Ireland into a serious crisis and back on to our front pages, where it has been happily absent for 20 years.
I know that Mrs May is desperate to find some way to cling on to power in Westminster, but I appeal to her to reconsider doing so propped up by one side from Northern Ireland politics. Doing so would risk undermining 20 years of hard work in trying to reach a lasting settlement.
Updated
Nicky Morgan, the Tory MP for Loughborough, has her say in today’s Observer by calling for Theresa May to learn the value of compromising – or else risk losing her leadership:
I asked my local party members early on Friday morning for their views. After all, they’ve spent the last seven weeks expending their shoe leather and getting drenched in the summer storms. The election result was a crushing blow to them, particularly as they rose so magnificently to the challenge of mounting a campaign with no advance warning. I wanted to know whether they thought the prime minister should stay or go. Most agree with me it is right that Theresa May is given the opportunity to form a government, but that her longer-term future as party leader is much less clear.
Relying on a narrow group of advisers is no longer an option, and there can be no more “citizens of nowhere”-style attacks that only serve to widen the divisions we desperately need to heal. The prime minister should, instead, look to the rest of her 2016 conference speech where she said “a change has got to come”. This is true. And the change has to come from her.
The Labour leader has done his bit to provide families around the country with some Sunday reading. He has Theresa May in his sights, in an interview with the Sunday Mirror:
In tomorrow’s Observer, Henry McDonald has more on the likely demands of the DUP in entering the confidence and supply agreement with the Conservatives. He believes DUP leader Arlene Foster will extract a high price to help prop up Theresa May’s leadership.
Included in the price Foster will extract from the Conservatives, she will seek commitments from May that there will be no poll on Irish unity and that there will be no hard border with the south. Foster and her party did back Brexit last year but have publicly stated they are opposed to customs posts, border installations and roadblocks being reimposed when the split with Europe occurs.
Her party may be unashamedly socially conservative but the DUP will avoid including any controversial social policies – such as opposition to gay marriage or abortion – in their “shopping list” of demands on the Tories, sources said yesterday.
Instead, the party will argue that controversies such as gay marital equality and abortion can only be dealt with in a Northern Ireland context by the Stormont assembly in Belfast. Rather, the DUP will focus on insisting there are no new checks at English, Scottish or Welsh ports and airports on any citizens travelling from Northern Ireland into the UK after Brexit.
Meanwhile, the DUP is being accused of betraying the interests of Northern Ireland by agreeing to support Theresa May’s minority government.
The Sinn Féin leader at Stormont, Michelle O’Neill, is predicting the confidence and supply deal between the Tories and the DUP would “end in tears”.
Highlighting austerity cuts and its stance on Brexit, O’Neill claimed the DUP link-up with May would spell bad news for Northern Ireland, a region that voted for remain.
“It is no surprise that the DUP has agreed to prop up the pro-Brexit and pro-austerity Tory government of Theresa May,” she said.
“They have once again betrayed the interests of the people of the north by supporting a Tory party which has cut funding to our public services year on year to the tune of hundreds of millions of pounds.”
Boris Johnson’s taken to Twitter in an attempt to dampen any expectation of a bid by him to roll Theresa May.
It’s a statement of loyalty from him – but whether the rumours and intrigue actually die away is another thing entirely.
Despite the mounting speculation, there is also evidence to suggest that support for a potential leadership bid by Boris Johnson may not be universal.
The deputy political editor at the Times has been going through his contacts list:
Splits in Tory ranks regarding the future of Brexit talks are on show, as Toby Helm and Daniel Boffey report in tomorrow’s Observer. This comes as European politicians speculate that Brexit negotiations are now significantly more likely to collapse.
Senior Tory and Labour MPs called on Theresa May to forge a new cross-party approach to Brexit as fears grew that the prime minister’s weakness could lead to the imminent collapse of talks on the UK’s exit from the European Union.
In a dramatic demonstration of May’s loss of authority, as a result of Thursday’s general election – which stripped her of a Commons majority – the MPs demanded that she in effect drop her own Tory “hard Brexit” plans in favour of a new “national” consenus, that would be endorsed by members from all sides of the House of Commons.
The proposal, if adopted, would throw open the debate on what kind of Brexit the country wants, with just a week to go before May is due to lead the country in formal negotiations with the EU on the terms of exit.
The people have already spoken this week, but there are some hoping there is more to be said.
A change.org petition (probably not started by THAT Winston Churchill) is calling for Theresa May’s resignation, following the confirmation of the terms of the agreement between the DUP and the Conservatives.
It has attracted almost 620,000 signatures already.
Business as usual appears to be the message from Theresa May on the issue of Brexit, following a conversation with German chancellor Angela Merkel today.
The prime minister has confirmed that Brexit talks would begin as planned, with the issue of citizens’ rights at the top of the agenda.
A Downing Street spokeswoman said: “The German chancellor Angela Merkel called the prime minister earlier today to offer her congratulations.
“The prime minister confirmed her intention for Brexit talks to begin as planned in the next couple of weeks, and that we would be looking for a reciprocal agreement on the rights of EU citizens and British citizens abroad at an early stage.”
Charles Grant, a director of the Centre for European Reform, is seeing an opportunity in the difficulties presented by Theresa May’s “crumbling authority”.
May’s instincts are probably to keep pushing for the hard Brexit that her right wing desires. But there is no parliamentary majority for a hard Brexit. Just a few pro-EU Tories could join opposition MPs to defeat May. If she wants to pass the Brexit deal – and the many Brexit-related laws that are required – she will have to collaborate with Labour and other opposition MPs.
Such a volte-face would be uncharacteristic of May. But if she doesn’t reinvent herself as a soft Brexiter, it is hard to see how she can stay in office. And if she falls, her successor will find that survival means working with the opposition to achieve a softer version of Brexit.
The Observer’s front page story tomorrow, written by Michael Savage and Henry McDonald, grapples with the Conservative / DUP agreement – and the speculation surrounding Boris Johnson and any bid to remove Theresa May as leader:
The move came after Tory MPs began warning party whips they would oppose any formal deal because of the DUP’s position on gay rights, abortion and climate change. The looser deal on offer would see the Northern Irish party’s 10 MPs support her in key votes, but not enter a closer pact with the Tories.
The decision to rule out a formal pact, which could make it harder for May to govern, comes after her trusted joint chiefs of staff, Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, resigned following her shock failure to secure a majority in Thursday’s general election.
May had been under pressure from ministers to sack the pair or face an immediate leadership challenge. Gavin Barwell, who lost his Croydon Central seat, has taken up the role of chief of staff.
May is under huge strain to keep the job she won less than a year ago. As the poor election result emerged, senior Tories are understood to have contacted Boris Johnson to sound him out about launching another leadership bid should May be unable to continue.
Friends of the foreign secretary dismissed any suggestion that he would try to force May out, stating that he was backing her decision to stay in post. “It is nonsense to suggest he is manoeuvering,” they said.
Despite his protestations, the Sunday Times is also leading tomorrow’s edition on Boris Johnson and a potential bid to roll Theresa May as leader. The Sunday Times suggests he could have the backing from a clutch of cabinet ministers:
... however, Boris Johnson is dismissing the Mail on Sunday’s piece suggesting that he is lining up a leadership bid as “simply wrong”.
The Mail On Sunday is reporting a close ally of the foreign secretary as saying it was “go go go” for a bid, adding: “We need Bojo.”
But Johnson’s spokesman said: “The foreign secretary is 100% supporting the prime minister and working with her to get the best deal for Britain.”
Updated
Tomorrow’s Mail on Sunday will lead on speculation that Boris Johnson is eyeing up the top job for himself as “wounded” Theresa May “clings on” following the departure of her key aides today...
Keir Starmer, the Labour MP for Holborn and St Pancras, is using the Conservatives’ own attack lines against them as he sums up his views on the Tory / DUP confidence and supply arrangement:
Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, is insisting that he can still be prime minister as he vows to fight Theresa May’s attempt to run a minority government “all the way”.
Labour won 262 seats in the general election, up from the 232 the party secured in 2015, but the Conservatives remain the largest party in parliament.
Corbyn believes that without an outright majority May’s position is vulnerable and he intends to oppose the Queen’s Speech in an attempt to bring down her administration.
The Labour leader comes across as confident in an interview in tomorrow’s Sunday Mirror: “I can still be prime minister. This is still on. Absolutely.”
Updated
The Observer has released its front page for tomorrow’s edition, with an extract from its editorial in a prominent position:
Discredited, humiliated, diminished. Theresa May has lost credibility and leverage in her party, her country and across Europe. Where there was respect, there is ridicule; where there was strength, there is weakness; where there was self-assurance, there is doubt. Rivals and opponents no longer fear her. Too weak to deliver her manifesto, too vulnerable to tackle dissent, too enfeebled to deliver for Britain. This prime minister can no longer serve her country
The Observer has delved into the ways Labour were able to engage with the youth demographic so successfully before Thursday’s vote. While Labour party insiders have claimed there was no magic bullet, it appears tactical use of two obscure pieces of software may have helped.
The first helped turn a swollen base of activists into proper campaigners. Called Chatter, it allowed Labour’s growing base of activists to have proper text exchanges with people they canvassed, rather than dispatching them blunt, campaigning messages. “It armed campaigners with the ability to actually make people feel like they were being listened to on a local level,” said a senior Labour figure.
The second was the closest thing Labour had to a secret weapon. Over the last year the party developed a tool called Promote. Its effect was to unleash the power of Facebook advertising to local parties across every constituency. The tool combined Facebook information with Labour’s voter data, but allowed senior activists and candidates to use it to send locally based messages to the right sections of their electorates. Labour is said to have spent heavily through the tool.
Tom Watson, the deputy leader of the Labour party, has a succinct reaction to the confirmation of the agreement between the Tories and the DUP.
Michael Savage, the Observer’s policy editor, has written about the appointment of Gavin Barwell as Theresa May’s chief of staff:
He could scarcely be taking up the job at a more difficult time, with May’s premiership in serious peril. He must now help navigate her through the immediate task of working with the Democratic Unionist party to govern and help prepare her for Brexit talks that begin in just over a week.
The shock election result and the departure of her closest aides has forced May to act quickly before parliament returns this week. The move also shows an attempt to reach out to Tories who lost their seat after claims that May has failed to show contrition.
Barwell had been the housing minister in May’s administration before losing his seat. Sajid Javid, the communities secretary, described the move as excellent appointment.
Updated
Despite the ongoing machinations around the general election result, Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson obviously still found time to follow the World Cup qualifier between England and Scotland this afternoon. It was heartbreak after Harry Kane’s late equaliser at Hampden Park.
Updated
The announcement that the government will be looking at a confidence and supply deal rather than a full coalition comes after a number of concerns were raised by Tory MPs about anything more formal.
Ruth Davidson, the Conservative leader in Scotland, stressed that she did not want to see an arrangement that would weaken the government’s position over equality. In particular, the concerns focus on the Democratic Unionist party’s opposition to gay marriage and extending abortion rights.
Tory MP Heidi Allen told the Guardian that she and a number of colleagues were “very uncomfortable” with any formal alliance with the DUP. She said she would prefer a minority government that would involve working cross party on big items such as Brexit.
A full coalition – as happened with the Conservatives and Lib Dems between 2010 and 2015 – involves the parties being fully integrated, with MPs from each side taking up cabinet roles.
Under a confidence and supply arrangement, the smaller party agrees to vote for or abstain on the Queen’s speech, and key pieces of legislation – including budget measures to raise finance.
In return, the Conservatives will pick up some elements of the DUP’s manifesto – as yet undetermined.
Updated
No 10 confirms basis of deal between Tories and DUP
Theresa May’s Conservative government will enter into an agreement with the DUP under a confidence and supply basis, Downing street has confirmed.
“We can confirm that the Democratic Unionist party have agreed to the principles of an outline agreement to support the Conservative government on a confidence and supply basis when parliament returns next week,” said a No 10 spokesman.
“We welcome this commitment, which can provide the stability and certainty the whole country requires as we embark on Brexit and beyond. The details will be put forward for discussion and agreement at a Cabinet meeting on Monday.”
Updated
Election fallout: key advisers to May resign as Tory-DUP discussions begin
The election result might be sinking in, but the ramifications are a long way from being played out. Here’s a summary of today’s key developments:
- After reports that Theresa May would face a leadership challenge as early as Monday unless she got rid of her unpopular chiefs of staff, Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, the pair resigned. Timothy said that he “took responsibility for the content of the whole manifesto”. One Tory MP reacted to the news of his departure by sending a message saying: “Rasputin had gone! There is a God. :)”
- Notwithstanding those changes, May has faced a swathe of criticism over her campaign and speculation about her future. Stewart Jackson, who lost his seat, said that the party’s manifesto was “shockingly bad” and “electoral poison”. Former minister Ed Vaizey said that Tory MPs were actively discussing May’s position using the WhatsApp messaging system.
- Angela Merkel said that Brexit negotiations should go ahead as planned in nine days time despite the political turmoil in the UK. “We are ready for the negotiations. We want to do it quickly, respecting the calendar,” she said.
- After the confirmation that five senior cabinet members would stay in their posts on Friday, there was no reshuffle on Saturday - though changes could be announced tomorrow.
- The Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson denied reports that she wanted a breakway for the party in Scotland, tweeting: “B****cks”. The report had credibility in part because of Davidson’s success in securing 13 Tory MPs in Scotland. She had already sought assurances from Theresa May that an alliance with the DUP would not mean any compromise on LGBTI rights.
- The Conservative chief whip Gavin Williamson went to Belfast to begin talks with the DUP “on how best they can provide support” to the government. The former Northern Ireland secretary Owen Paterson suggested that abortion time limits could be up for debate in the new parliament.
That’s it for the live blog for today - thanks for following an extraordinary political period with us.
The new crop of MPs are young and ethnically diverse. Among them are Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi, the first turban-wearing Sikh MP, who took Slough in Berkshire for Labour; and Marsha De Cordova, also a Labour MP, who is registered as blind and overcame a large Tory majority to capture Battersea.
You can read more about the new generation here:
After the confirmation on Friday that five senior ministers – Philip Hammond, Amber Rudd, Boris Johnson, Michael Fallon and David Davis – would remain in post, there will be no reshuffle of other cabinet jobs today, the Guardian understands. But after the departure of Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, Theresa May’s new chief of staff is expected to be named.
Updated
Who says no one keeps their promises any more?
Author and Chatham House senior fellow Matthew Goodwin vowed to eat his own words if Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour got more than 38% of the vote in the election.
As the party managed to secure 40%, he went on Sky News this afternoon to tuck in to some pages.
This man just ate (some of) his book live on Sky News after making an incorrect #GE2017 prediction @GoodwinMJ pic.twitter.com/13IaFLaJvx
— Sky News (@SkyNews) June 10, 2017
Updated
Another Conservative has added his name to the list of those fiercely criticising Theresa May’s campaign. On BBC Radio 5 Live, former MP Stewart Jackson, who lost his seat in Peterborough, said the manifesto was “shockingly bad ... lacking passion, it was bland, it lacked vision ... above everything else [it was] a real lost opportunity.”
And he went on:
“Our manifesto was all about what we’ll stop them having and what we’ll not give them and what’s good for them and that’s frankly electoral poison and a complete disaster ... there had not been appropriate consultation on it ... and when you have to explain that you’re not taking food from children’s mouths and taking homes from your core supporters, then you’re losing an election.
His criticisms of May didn’t stop at the manifesto. Since he lost his seat he said that he had heard from David Cameron – but not from May or Conservative chairman Sir Patrick McLoughlin. That, he said, was “quite poor”.
Updated
The anti-DUP protest has made it to the gates of Downing Street, with chants of “Tories out, refugees in” and “Tories out, Corbyn in” on loudspeakers.
Luke O’Neill, 27, a nursery worker, said he was angry that Theresa May had done a deal with the Northern Ireland party, although he admitted he did not initially know who they were.
“I’ve never seen people more hateful in my life,” he said. “I didn’t know who the DUP were, I had to Google them, as many people no doubt in this country would have had to Google them.”
Updated
Newsnight editor Ian Katz tweets:
Gorgeous day in London and NN team all indoors beavering away on special election aftermath show which goes out 6pm, BBC2. So please watch!
— Ian Katz (@iankatz1000) June 10, 2017
TONIGHT: Join us at 18:00 on BBC Two for a special edition of @BBCNewsnight and latest reactions to resignation of Nick Timothy & Fiona Hill pic.twitter.com/J3O7eVawV5
— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) June 10, 2017
Updated
A former media adviser to Theresa May, Joey Jones, has said May is now “alone and friendless”, during an interview on Sky News.
"She's alone, she's friendless": Former media adviser to Theresa May @joeyfjones gives his take on the PM's situation after #GE2017 pic.twitter.com/g5kbGD9EmZ
— Sky News (@SkyNews) June 10, 2017
Jones has also expanded on his thoughts in this piece for Politics Home in which he says “Open Season on Nick and Fi” is the payback many have yearned for.
In the piece, he describes an interaction with Fiona Hill that he says is “symptomatic of Nick and Fi’s desire for total control” on the day after May assumed office in No 10:
The next morning I got a text from her saying she wanted to talk through my role. I explained I was bringing the foreign secretary’s adviser, Will Walden, into the building to look at his schedule. The text came back: “Did you clear that with me?” I knew at that point this was not my scene. An hour or so later I walked out of the gate into a glorious St James’ Park and went home.
But that text message was symptomatic of Nick and Fi’s desire for total control. I believe the dynamic they work to is simple: they decide, others execute. In effect, they were the brain of government, everybody else was the limbs. It is a brilliant model as long as the people making the decisions are infallible. It is a model that is intolerant of compromise or shades of grey. Under pressure, it looks like a model that is intolerant of reality – messy, pesky reality.
Updated
The leader of the Scottish Conservatives has rejected claims that she will break away from the London-based party in the wake of the disastrous general election result, my colleagues Chris Johnston and Anushka Asthana report.
The Telegraph reported that aides to Ruth Davidson were working on a deal to separate the Scottish party after it boosted the number of Tory MPs from one to 13.
The reports were seen as a sign that the party’s Scottish leader was seeking to assert the influence of her MPs. They came after Davidson said that she had received assurances from Theresa May that there would be no movement on gay rights if the Tories struck a deal with Northern Ireland’s socially conservative Democratic Unionist party.
However, the MSP dismissed the story in a tweet late on Friday night:
B****cks. Folk might remember I fought a leadership election on the other side of that particular argument.... https://t.co/IQev2xSnUp
— Ruth Davidson (@RuthDavidsonMSP) June 9, 2017
Updated
.@RuthDavidsonMSP and her new batch of Westminster MPs pose for a team photo in Stirling. pic.twitter.com/CWcPNJBcqY
— BBC Andrew Kerr (@BBCandrewkerr) June 10, 2017
Scotland Office minister Lord Dunlop is to “bow out” of the government, he has announced.
Andrew Dunlop said that after the Tories’ success in Scotland in the general election it was a “good time” for him to go.
The Conservatives had their best Scottish Westminster result since 1983, with the party now having 13 MPs from north of the border, and claiming high-profile scalps including former SNP first minister Alex Salmond and the SNP deputy leader, Angus Robertson.
Lord Dunlop announced his decision on Twitter, stating: “Joined govt 6 years ago to help keep the UK together. 13 Scottish Tory MPs & a 62% Unionist vote share seems a good moment to bow out.”
He put on record his thanks to “all friends & colleagues in government“, particularly the Scottish secretary David Mundell, as well as “those from across political parties with whom I’ve worked”.
Dunlop was given a peerage by David Cameron in 2015, allowing him to take on the role of Scotland Office minister.
Updated
Martin Selmayr, senior aide to the European commission president, Jean Claude-Juncker, has likened the resignations of Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill to the sacrifice of a pawn in the game of chess, using the word “bauernopfer” in a tweet.
Bauernopfer.
— Martin Selmayr (@MartinSelmayr) June 10, 2017
Updated
Here’s some reaction from the Twitter commentariat to the resignation of Fiona Hill and Nick Timothy. Some have welcomed the news, others say May is just try to deflect attention.
The Guardian’s Owen Jones:
Pathetic watching @theresa_may let her advisors take the flack. She's the leader. She made the decisions. She should resign.
— Owen Jones (@OwenJones84) June 10, 2017
MP Nigel Evans:
At last some good news from Downing Street- resignations of advisors must be the start- inclusive style of governance must follow ..
— nigelevansRibbleV. (@nigelmp) June 10, 2017
The Guardian’s Anushka Asthana has received an interesting reaction from a Tory MP:
To which a Tory immediately texts: "Rasputin has gone! There is a God :)"
— Anushka Asthana (@GuardianAnushka) June 10, 2017
Tory MP Michael Fabricant:
Sad in many ways, though understand why, Nick Timothy quit.
— Michael Fabricant (@Mike_Fabricant) June 10, 2017
He was main architect of #Brexit including need to leave Single Market.
ITV’s Robert Peston:
So resignations of Hill and Timothy create a huge risk for @theresa_may for all that her MPs wanted them out: she has lost her human shield!
— Robert Peston (@Peston) June 10, 2017
Labour MP Wes Streeting:
It seems former Tory MPs aren't the only ones losing their jobs because of Theresa May's hubris and incompetence.
— Wes Streeting MP (@wesstreeting) June 10, 2017
And Guardian columnist Matthew d’Ancona has written a thread starting here:
1. Nick Timothy is one of the brightest Tory thinkers in the political firmament. His scapegoating - along with the Fiona Hill's - is a
— Matthew d'Ancona (@MatthewdAncona) June 10, 2017
Updated
Fiona Hill has released a brief statement through ConservativeHome in the wake of her resignation as joint chief of staff:
It’s been a pleasure to serve in government, and a pleasure to work with such an excellent prime minister. I have no doubt at all that Theresa May will continue to serve and work hard as prime minister – and do it brilliantly.
Updated
Irish pro-choice activists protesting in Westminster say their own campaign has received a surge of interest amid concern over the prospect of the DUP propping up a minority Tory government.
“A lot of of new people have been getting in touch and some of them turned up today,” said Lorna Kelly, a member of the London Irish Abortion Rights Campaign, which advocates the repeal of laws prohibiting abortion in the Irish Republic and for the extension of rights to Northern Ireland, where laws on terminations are far stricter than elsewhere in the UK.
"Pray the DUP away"
— Ben Quinn (@BenQuinn75) June 10, 2017
Irish pro choice campaigners at Westminster today pic.twitter.com/8dZc3tKEsL
Jane Wells, a London resident from Belfast who is on the Northern Ireland subgroup of the campaign, said many politically engaged people in Britain only now appeared to be waking up to the situation in Northern Ireland.
“The DUP are the trailblazers in limited access to abortion rights in Northern Ireland and, as a result of this election, women who need to have access to free, safe and legal abortion there won’t be represented at Westminster,” said Wells.
“Some of us have been very frustrated for a while about the relative lack of support that we feel we have received from some feminists in Britain. Although there have been some good and very high-profile exceptions, we have felt left down.
“We need people not just to be writing to their Tory MPs about the DUP now, but also to focus on the situation which has existed in Northern Ireland.”
Other activists have also gone to Westminster Green, including Jeremy Corbyn’s allies in the Stop the War Coalition and various smaller leftwing groups.
Updated
The announcement that Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill have resigned comes amid reports Tory MPs had said if they did not go they would mount a leadership challenge.
My colleague, Alan Travis, points out that Hill has previously resigned as an adviser to May and this did not stop her returning.
Fiona Hill resigned once before as May's political adviser at Home Office after spat with Gove but she never stopped doing the job
— Alan Travis (@alantravis40) June 10, 2017
Updated
I take responsibility for my part in election campaign – PM adviser
Nick Timothy, Theresa May’s co-chief of staff, has stepped down amid huge pressure from Tory MPs over his role in the party’s disastrous election campaign.
Timothy, who was appointed to the role in July 2016, said he accepted the part he played in the result, which saw the Conservative party lose 13 seats and its majority, adding it was a “huge disappointment”.
In his resignation statement, published on Conservative Home, Timothy singles out a particular regret over the details of the social care policy included in the Tory manifesto that many have seen as a trigger for the downturn in the Conservatives’ fortunes.
I take responsibility for my part in this election campaign, which was the oversight of our policy programme. In particular, I regret the decision not to include in the manifesto a ceiling as well as a floor in our proposal to help meet the increasing cost of social care.
But I would like to make clear that the bizarre media reports about my own role in the policy’s inclusion are wrong: it had been the subject of many months of work within Whitehall, and it was not my personal pet project.
I chose not to rebut these reports as they were published, as to have done so would have been a distraction for the campaign. But I take responsibility for the content of the whole manifesto, which I continue to believe is an honest and strong programme for government.
Updated
Fiona Hill, co-chief of staff to PM, also resigns
PA reports – Theresa May’s joint chief of staff Fiona Hill has also resigned, a Tory spokesman said.
Updated
Nick Timothy has resigned as chief of staff to PM
Nick Timothy has announced his resignation as chief of staff to the prime minister on Conservative Home.
George Freeman, a Tory MP and head of the Downing Street policy board, has identified a central problem of the Conservative campaign was failure to realise the electorate’s fatigue with austerity.
He said it was “one of the key misunderstandings of the campaign: many Brexit voters were registering a rejection of domestic austerity policy”.
Freeman, who was sidelined from the writing of the manifesto, added that it was “lethal” to have ignored grassroots disillusionment with austerity.
This is one of the key misunderstandings of the campaign: many Brexit voters were registering a rejection of DOMESTIC "austerity" policy. https://t.co/0NuvmYYLvK
— George Freeman MP (@Freeman_George) June 9, 2017
Robert Peston, ITV’s political editor, says the chief whip Gavin Williamson is off to Belfast to negotiate a formal coalition with DUP, as opposed to a less formal “confidence and supply” arrangement.
Chief whip Gavin Williamson has been sent to Belfast by @theresa_may to negotiate formal coalition with DUP https://t.co/9Lzr7o2w6e
— Robert Peston (@Peston) June 10, 2017
He writes:
The prime minister has sent a team of officials, led by her chief whip, Gavin Williamson, to Belfast to negotiate the details of an alliance with the DUP.
“A coalition would be much better than a looser alliance”, one senior minister said. “We don’t want the DUP demanding money for this or that project they fancy every time we need them to support us in a vote. That would be deeply unstable.”
Updated
Neil Carmichael, the Tory who lost his seat in Stroud, has backed up the concerns of Ruth Davidson, the party’s leader in Scotland, about a DUP deal.
He said:
I think that Ruth Davidson is absolutely right to fire a warning shot on the gay/lesbian front. If we are going to build a society that is fair, decent and safe we have to be tolerant and fundamentally that is about individuals being able to prosper in a free society – not just financially but socially, intellectually and culturally.
Carmichael, who was chair of parliament’s education committee and a vocal proponent of soft Brexit, also feared how a rightwing coalition would impact on EU talks.
What Theresa May must not do is allow the DUP to push her into the corner where the only way forward for her is the hard Brexit.
He argued that the election had shown widespread opposition to the government’s tough line on the talks. He added:
Hard Brexiteers have got some thinking to do – a minority government with the stresses and strains of coalition – may be a short-lived affair.
Updated
The former Labour leader Ed Miliband has been taunting his old sparring partner...
.@David_Cameron You know that coalition of chaos thing... https://t.co/Iku9pO3HHw
— Ed Miliband (@Ed_Miliband) June 10, 2017
Updated
Theresa May has spoken to the Australian prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, and New Zealand’s prime minister, Bill English.
A Downing Street spokesperson said the two prime ministers congratulated May on the election, which saw her party lose 13 seats and its overall majority.
A Downing Street spokesperson said:
The prime minister has taken two further telephone calls today from other world leaders.
The Australian prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, called to congratulate the prime minister. They agreed the UK and Australia were close partners, and would continue to stand together, particularly in the fight against terrorism, which was a shared threat facing us all. The prime minister, offered her sincere condolences over the two Australians killed in the London Bridge attack, and over the police injuries sustained in the recent Melbourne attack.
New Zealand’s prime minister, Bill English, called the prime minister, to offer his congratulations. The prime minister, said she was very sorry that a New Zealander had been injured in the London Bridge terrorist attack. They agreed they looked forward to continuing to work together as close partners.
Updated
More from the BBC’s assistant political editor, this time on pressure mounting on chiefs of staff.
Senior Tories say Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill must be sacked this weekend or leadership challenge on Monday
— norman smith (@BBCNormanS) June 10, 2017
The Guardian reports here on the criticism levelled at Fiona Hill and Nick Timothy.
Theresa May’s chiefs of staff, Fiona Hill and Nick Timothy, are facing calls to quit, as one former Downing Street aide spoke out about their “rude, abusive and childish” approach to running No 10.
A string of MPs are demanding changes to the way May governs, including the removal of one or both of her powerful advisers after they ran her disastrous general election campaign that resulted in the Conservatives losing their overall majority.
Katie Perrior, the former director of communications at No 10, who left at the election, said she respected May but her office was “pretty dysfunctional”.
Updated
A deal between the Tories and the DUP would be “bad news” for women given the party’s opposition to relaxing Northern Ireland’s strict abortion laws, opposition politicians have warned.
Labour MP Jo Stevens said the prospect of May’s party doing a deal with the DUP was “chilling”, after Tory former cabinet minister Owen Paterson said his party may have to enter “a debate I suppose on further reduction of abortion times as medical science advances”.
Green party deputy leader Amelia Womack said the DUP’s stance on abortion had left women in Northern Ireland in “dire circumstances” and described the potential tie-up with the Tories as a “coalition of cruelty”.
The DUP wants no extension to Northern Ireland’s limitations on terminations, which restrict the procedure to when a woman’s life is at risk or there is a permanent or serious risk to her mental or physical health.
As it stands, fatal foetal abnormalities, rape and incest are not grounds for an abortion.
After hearing of Paterson’s comments on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Stevens tweeted: “This is just 1 reason why Theresa May doing a deal with #DUP is chilling @labourwomen @bpas1968 @Abortion_Rights”
Womack said: “The Tory-DUP coalition of cruelty is bad news for women. We may have seen a record number of women gain seats in the parliament this week, but the 10 MPs of the anti-abortion, anti-equal marriage DUP look set to have a disproportionate influence, which should concern us all.
“The DUP’s obstruction to legal abortion in Northern Ireland has left many women in dire circumstances, forced to travel to England where they are not entitled to NHS-funded terminations or face prosecution for seeking help at home.
“It is deeply concerning that a party responsible for so much pain could be in a position to exert so much influence.
“Women’s rights are under threat and we must work together to stop a lurch to the right under a Tory-DUP alliance.”
Updated
Brexit negotiations should go ahead as planned - Merkel
Angela Merkel has said Brexit negotiations should go ahead as scheduled in nine days’ time – despite the UK being plunged into political turmoil by the general election.
The German chancellor said the European Union wants talks to progress “quickly” and warned it would defend the interests of its members during the looming divorce proceedings.
After calling a snap election in a bid to strengthen her hand, Theresa May now faces having to tear up her plans – should she cling on to power long enough to set them in motion.
Speaking during a visit to Mexico, Merkel ended her brief period of “polite” restraint from commenting on May’s catastrophic poll.
We are ready for the negotiations. We want to do it quickly, respecting the calendar,” she said in comments reported by Sky News.
We were waiting for the election in Britain, but in the next few days these talks will begin.
We will defend the interests of the 27 member states, and Britain will defend its own interests.
On Friday, the European council, president Donald Tusk, told May there was “no time to lose”.
With talks due to start in Brussels on 19 June, Tusk said it was their “urgent task” to get on with the negotiations in “the best possible spirit”.
In a letter to the PM congratulating her on her reappointment, he said the two-year time-frame set out under article 50 of the EU treaties left no room for delay.
The European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, also said he hoped there would be no further delay to the negotiations “we are desperately waiting for”.
Brussels’ chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, has said the talks would begin when Britain was ready, suggesting he would consider a short delay.
“Brexit negotiations should start when UK is ready; timetable and EU positions are clear. Let’s put our minds together on striking a deal,” he said on Twitter.
However, there was clear frustration with the EU at the failure of the election to deliver a decisive result.
The European parliament’s Brexit co-ordinator, Guy Verhofstadt, said: “Yet another own goal, after Cameron now May, will make already complex negotiations even more complicated.”
May’s plans lay in tatters on Friday after an unexpected surge in support for Labour saw the Conservatives lose seats, falling short of an overall majority.
As May sought to secure a parliamentary majority by striking a deal with Northern Ireland’s DUP, a spokesman for Merkel said they would refrain from commenting out of “politeness and respect”.
Updated
Here’s a write up from my colleagues Anushka Asthana and Rowena Mason on the pressure mounting on Theresa May’s chiefs of staff, Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill. They write:
Cabinet ministers and a string of Conservative MPs are demanding that Theresa May sacks one or both of her closest advisers if she wants them to support her minority government, propped up by the Democratic Unionist party.
Several politicians told the Guardian that Fiona Hill and Nick Timothy, who act as the prime minister’s joint chiefs of staff in Downing Street, must take responsibility for the poor result, which saw the Tories lose their majority.
The pair were at the centre of recriminations flying back and forth between MPs on WhatsApp groups and even resulted in one cabinet minister branding the pair as “monsters who propped her up and sunk our party”.
Updated
Former minister Ed Vaizey indicated that Tory MPs were actively discussing May’s position using the WhatsApp messaging system.
Asked if there were phonecalls being made between Tories about the next leader, Vaizey told the BBC: “That’s so 20th century. It’s all on WhatsApp.”
He added: “We all talk on WhatsApp ... lots of MPs are in lots of different groups.”
Vaizey said he hoped the election result would soften May’s stance on Brexit, adding: “I hope in the next few days we will see a clear acknowledgement that a ‘no deal is better than a bad deal’ is off the table, that we are going for a Brexit that is going to secure jobs and investment.”
Updated
Gordon Brown’s former adviser Damian McBride has commented on the Katie Perrior interviews (see here).
You know things are bad when even ex-Gordon Brown staffers are texting each other saying: ‘Wow, that’s bad’. #KatiePerrior
— Damian McBride (@DPMcBride) June 10, 2017
Updated
Theresa May should resign as Conservative leader, thus triggering a leadership contest, according to 60% of party members who responded to a survey on the ConservativeHome website.
The poll, which was launched on Friday, found 894 of the 1,503 members who responded believed the prime minister should quit, 551 thought she should stay on and 58 did not know.
Paul Goodman, who wrote the post on the site, described the result as astonishing and adds: “It is the most damning finding in one of our polls that I can remember.”
Of the 4,763 responses in total, which includes readers as well as party members, 65% think May should go, with 31% saying she should stay.
Goodman also calls for a cabinet reshuffle that brings May’s “most heavyweight critics off the backbenches and in her government. She should therefore consider recalling Michael Gove, perhaps with a brief to rethink the constitution and devolution post-Brexit, and send Dominic Grieve to justice. We also recommend the return of our columnist, Nicky Morgan – maybe to education.”
Updated
DUP talks never take place on Sundays on religious grounds
It is worth remembering why it would have been difficult for Theresa May and her team to hold face-to-face negotiations with the Democratic Unionists this weekend - they would have run out of road in terms of time very quickly.
DUP politicians don’t do discussions on Sundays because given the party’s Evangelical Christian roots, most of them are at their church halls and parishes on the sabbath.
Although times are changing in Northern Ireland DUP-controlled councils used to lock up playgrounds and close some council facilities as part of their Never-on-a-Sunday Sabbatarianism.
Updated
BBC’s assistant political editor Norman Smith says there will be no DUP talks this weekend.
DUP folk say no talks planned this weekend with Tories
— norman smith (@BBCNormanS) June 10, 2017
Former Tory leader Lord Hague has said “very serious lessons” had to be learned by the Conservative party but warned against a leadership contest.
Writing in The Daily Telegraph, he said:
An overwhelmingly strong position at the time of the local elections on May 4 was turned into serious losses by June 8.
The awful truth is that no party has given up such an advantageous situation with such speed in the modern electoral history of our country.
Very serious lessons will have to be learnt from that.
The Conservative campaign was strong on honesty and realism, but the next time the party enters a general election it will need to be just as strong on hope and vision for the future – and there’s no reason it shouldn’t be.
Stressing that a leadership battle was unwarranted, Lord Hague said:
Voters do not want further months of uncertainty and upheaval. They want to see ministers getting on with the job, while acknowledging democracy and their constrained circumstances.
Updated
The former Northern Ireland secretary, Conservative MP Owen Paterson, has played down fears of an assault on gay rights if his party does a deal with the DUP but has suggested issues such as abortion time limits could be up for debate.
He told BBC Radio Today programme:
I don’t see many major social issues coming up in the next parliament.
You might get a debate I suppose on further reduction of abortion times as medical science advances.
But the stuff you mention like gay rights and all that, which you’re probably referring to, that is all devolved.
It’s not only a free vote issue, most of this, but it’s nearly all devolved and that’s down to the politicians in Northern Ireland to resolve.
Told of Ruth Davidson’s concerns about the potential reversal of gay rights, Paterson said:
No, I don’t see that at all. She’s perfectly fair to raise it ... these issues are devolved, and if they were sorted in the UK parliament they’d be free vote issues. I really don’t see them colouring the talks.
Updated
Several MPs told the Guardian that the prime minister had no hope of fighting another election as Conservative leader, describing her as finished within months.
Overnight as the results of the election were pouring in, many said May would have to go, but by morning and over the weekend discussions between MPs would be focused on making sure Brexit went ahead.
Iain Duncan Smith said it would be “suicide” for anyone to launch a leadership bid ahead of the talks, describing such a move as turkeys voting for Christmas.
But all agreed that one of May’s two closest advisers had to go – with anger at Hill for bullying behaviour.
“It’s unacceptable for her to send sweary texts to cabinet ministers,” said another member of the cabinet, who described Hill telling a senior government figure to “fuck off”.
Others were angry at Timothy for including the social care policy in the manifesto. They said there was no “retail offer” and no attempt to explain why they weren’t including a string of giveaways.
Updated
May's key aides were toxic streetfighters, says former No 10 spin doctor
Katie Perrior, a former Downing Street director of communications, has given an extraordinary account of working with Theresa May’s chiefs of staff, Fiona Hill and Nick Timothy, whose operation she branded “toxic”.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Perrior said May’s office “was pretty dysfunctional”.
I do want to say Mrs May has some real qualities and she’s a good person. I feel really bad for her today because, yes, she takes responsibility for this as she will because she has a real sense of public service and duty that runs right through her.
But at the same time I do feel quite sorry for her personally because it’s a tough environment.
Asked why May was not able to operate without advisers like Hill and Timothy, she said:
Being in the Home Office for such a long time with that being her top team she became accustomed to that being it. Of course, running the Home Office is very different from running the country.
Trying to make that change to Number 10 was more difficult than she possibly anticipated. I used to wonder why because actually she needed to broaden her circle of advisers, she needed to have a few grey hairs in there who have been around the block a bit, who could say: don’t do that, don’t make enemies when you don’t need to.
Perrior described the fearful atmosphere with Hill and Timothy in morning meetings with the PM.
We were going to an 8.30 meeting every morning at Theresa May’s office and the atmosphere would be great if the chiefs of staff were not there and terrible if the chiefs of staff were there.
We would be able to speak freely if they weren’t around and if they were around you don’t speak.
In one conversation around the time of the Copeland byelection with a political director, Hill was at the back of the room “bellowing out: ‘why aren’t you doing this? Why aren’t you doing more?’”, Perrior said, prompting a “rare” intervention from the PM. Perrior said:
Most of the time we would sit there and often and hear Fiona come up with ideas that were quite frankly crazy and we’d say nothing. But when they weren’t in the room it was a much better free-flowing conversation with some brilliant people.
Perrior agreed that Hill and Timothy bullied cabinet ministers.
There was not enough respect shown to people who spent 20 years in office or 20 years getting to the top seat in government. They would send people text messages – rude text messages – which is not acceptable.
What the prime minister needs at a time that you’re going through Brexit is diplomats not street-fighters. They only really know one way to operate – and that is to have enemies and I’m sure I’m one of them this morning.
Asked why she left after 10 months, Perrior said:
Every month that went past I felt I’ve done pretty well for holding on because it was pretty toxic.
Perrior said she was close to leaving the post but Hill effectively told her she had no place in the team.
Updated
Theresa May needed to broaden her circle of her advisers, Perrior says.
Perrior describes 8.30am meetings with May and sometimes her chiefs of staff, Timothy and Hill.
“The atmosphere if the chiefs of staff weren’t there was great; it was not if they were there.”
You could speak freely if they (Timothy and Hill) weren’t there, she said.
Hill would come up with ideas “that were quite frankly crazy”, Perrior says.
Hill and Timothy bullied and badly treated cabinet ministers, Perrior says. They would send people “rude text messages”.
PM needs diplomats not street fighters, Perrior adds. The only way they know how to operate is to have enemies.
Updated
May's No 10 office was 'dysfunctional', says former comms chief
Morning all. Jamie Grierson here. Still hungry for election news? Good, me too.
Katie Perrior, a former Downing Street director of communications, is on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. She’s talking about May’s close aides Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill.
She says working in May’s office was “pretty dysfunctional”.
The prime minister has good qualities, she’s a good person, Perrior says.
Updated
Jamie Grierson is now picking up the live blog.
A quick reminder: today is the final day of the Snap election briefing. You can read it here. Thanks to all who sent me comments about it, here on the live blogs and on Twitter in the last seven weeks.
If you’d like to continue with a daily email, do sign up for the Guardian morning briefing. You can do that here.
Ruth Davidson, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, has very firmly rejected that Telegraph front page headline (see below), which reads: “Scots Tories go their own way.”
B****cks. Folk might remember I fought a leadership election on the other side of that particular argument.... https://t.co/IQev2xSnUp
— Ruth Davidson (@RuthDavidsonMSP) June 9, 2017
Updated
Scotland’s front pages
The Scottish newspaper front pages offer no more succour to the embattled PM – and little to the first minister, either:
Saturday's SCOTSMAN: "SNP admit independence lost them election seats" #bbcpapers #tomorrowspaperstoday pic.twitter.com/FNIrLEkC34
— Allie Hodgkins-Brown (@AllieHBNews) June 9, 2017
Good morning from The Scottish Sun. Here's a look for today's front page: https://t.co/v3SvzXzz7k #scotpapers pic.twitter.com/A1n9oNWBvl
— The Scottish Sun (@ScottishSun) June 9, 2017
Here's a first look at Saturday's Daily Record front page #scotpapers pic.twitter.com/AK8WYgdWTR
— The Daily Record (@Daily_Record) June 9, 2017
Saturday's front page of The Herald pic.twitter.com/rlZyhaCW8P
— HeraldScotland (@heraldscotland) June 9, 2017
Tomorrow: Setbacks will only make our Yes movement stronger ... and a Tory/DUP Government is exactly why independence is worth fighting for pic.twitter.com/7x6VTijuyv
— The National (@ScotNational) June 9, 2017
Saturday's Daily TELEGRAPH (Scotland): "Scots Tories go their own way" #bbcpapers #tomorrowspaperstoday pic.twitter.com/A9aMN96PsS
— Allie Hodgkins-Brown (@AllieHBNews) June 9, 2017
Updated
Saturday's front pages
Given the election results – and the days and weeks of newspaper front pages that preceded them – we should probably be reassessing the power of a page 1 to swing voter opinion.
Nonetheless, the turning of the (previously supportive) press on the (still) prime minister will surely be giving those in No 10 something to think about today.
Saturday's Daily MAIL: "Tories Turn On Theresa" #bbcpapers #tomorrowspaperstoday pic.twitter.com/Hh9z8TPuEA
— Allie Hodgkins-Brown (@AllieHBNews) June 9, 2017
Saturday's SUN: "She's Had Her Chips" #bbcpapers #tomorrowspaperstoday pic.twitter.com/3vbWqChaJ6
— Allie Hodgkins-Brown (@AllieHBNews) June 9, 2017
Saturday's Daily TELEGRAPH: "May fights to remain PM" #bbcpapers #tomorrowspaperstoday pic.twitter.com/D03hZYVSWH
— Allie Hodgkins-Brown (@AllieHBNews) June 9, 2017
Saturday's TIMES: "May stares into the abyss" #bbcpapers #tomorrowspaperstoday pic.twitter.com/NXngLoesUO
— Allie Hodgkins-Brown (@AllieHBNews) June 9, 2017
And here’s the Guardian front page:
From hubris to humiliation: tomorrow's Guardian front page in print pic.twitter.com/VlTZVNPLQF
— Katharine Viner (@KathViner) June 9, 2017
And the Mirror:
Saturday's Daily MIRROR: "Coalition Of Crackpots" #bbcpapers #tomorrowspaperstoday pic.twitter.com/URGN3He1hQ
— Allie Hodgkins-Brown (@AllieHBNews) June 9, 2017
Chris Leslie, the former shadow chancellor re-elected in Nottingham East, and a Corbyn critic, has been speaking to the Today programme.
He says the Labour leader ran a “solid and effective campaign”:
But we lost the election.
I’m sorry if that sounds a bit miserable but I’m thinking about my constituents … They do not need a Conservative government. It’s bad for them.
He says Labour today ought to be thinking about “what more should we be doing in order to win a Labour majority government?”
There’s fantastic results … but the Conservatives got 318 seats; that means they’re going to be able to form a government.
We haven’t won that election. He [Corbyn] did very well in some areas … but I come back to the point: we haven’t won that election. We shouldn’t pretend this is a famous victory.
Five years of a Conservative government: I can’t, I’m afraid, be a cheerleader for that outcome.
Labour, he says, should have performed better:
I’ve never known a more beatable prime minister than Theresa May.
I want to see him [Corbyn] looking at the lessons from areas where we didn’t do well.
Neither left or right was trusted sufficiently in this election.
His own view of Corbyn hasn’t altered, Leslie says:
A lot of people do see him as a credible prime minister.
I’m not going to pretend that I have suddenly changed my views.
262 [seats] is much better than it was but I don’t think it’s as good as it should be.
Updated
Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson is the highest profile Tory so far to express disquiet over the prospect of a pact with the Democratic Unionists, given their stance against gay rights.
Tom Tugendhat, re-elected for the Conservatives in Tonbridge, Edenbridge and Malling, has also reaffirmed his backing for, among other things, equal marriage, something the DUP has blocked in Northern Ireland.
I joined a party that introduced equal marriage, backs civil rights and defends freedom of faith. Those principles won't be compromised.
— Tom Tugendhat (@TomTugendhat) June 9, 2017
As Press Association reports:
Northern Ireland is the only part of the British Isles where same-sex marriage remains outlawed. The DUP has repeatedly used a controversial Stormont voting mechanism – the petition of concern – to prevent the legalisation of same-sex marriage, despite a majority of MLAs [members of the legislative assembly] supporting the move at the last vote.
Recently, DUP leader Arlene Foster said her party was wrongly characterised as homophobic by its critics:
They are wrong and they need to understand why we take those positions from a faith point of view and why we want to protect the definition of marriage.
I could not care less what people get up to in terms of their sexuality, that’s not a matter for me, when it becomes a matter for me is when people try to redefine marriage.
But Iris Robinson, when a DUP MP, described homosexuality as an “abomination”. Current DUP MP Ian Paisley Jr has said he felt “repulsed” by gay sex.
Updated
Nine government ministers lost their seats in the election. Two of them – Gavin Barwell, former housing minister, and Nicola Blackwood, former health minister – have been speaking to Radio 4’s Today programme. Neither are lashing out at the leader who took them into the election that cost them their constituencies.
Barwell says:
I think she was right to call the election, to try to strengthen her hand.
He concedes “the campaign clearly wasn’t perfect”, but says May scored a high percentage of the vote – as did Labour:
We need to understand how Labour managed to achieve that … the Labour vote has increased very significantly.
Blackwood says:
No party has been a winner … young people have really come out in their droves and made quite clear they’re not going to be ignored.
She says the divisions in the country – she cites intergenerational gaps, city and rural, and leavers and remainers – were, during the campaign “not addressed as they should have been … People voted in ways that were no expected by the political parties”.
Both back May to carry on as prime minister, with Blackwood arguing she has shown she can “deliver leadership”:
She had huge, broad appeal, not just in the Conservative party but across the country.
And Barwell says May’s campaign was not “disastrous”:
I’m not trying to pretend it’s a triumph.
[But] I believe there’s a will in the Conservative party to get behind her and support her.
We’ve got to do the job … which is to get these [Brexit] negotiations right.
May is the right person to do that, he says.
The Snap: your election briefing
Here we are, the morning after the morning after, with Theresa May still in No 10, still prime minister and still without a majority. I’m Claire Phipps with your morning roundup – and the last of this election’s Snap briefings – and the live blog to guide you through Saturday.
The winners who lost
It turns out that June could still be the end of May – but perhaps not quite yet. The prime minister zipped off to see the Queen on Friday, without quite having her own queenmakers in place. While Arlene Foster, leader of the Democratic Unionist party, agreed that Northern Ireland’s biggest group of MPs would be holding talks with the Tories, no firm deal appears to have been struck, and May herself mentioned her “friends and allies” only fleetingly in her “this is fine” Downing Street address.
Her new government would “provide certainty”, the PM insisted, trying gamely to give the impression that losing her majority had been the plan all along and she absolutely meant to kick herself in the head. Somehow she forgot to mention the vanished majority at all, or the colleagues who had found themselves out of a job (an addendum issued later, a sad-faced oops).
Wiped, too, is the “Theresa May’s team” branding. Back in comes the official but rarely deployed “Conservative and Unionist party”. That title at least gives some Venn diagram overlap with the DUP, but questions persist over where else they might find accommodation. Jonathan Powell, chief of staff to Tony Blair at the time of the Good Friday agreement, was not the only person to question what this might mean for the Westminster government’s duty to be neutral in Northern Ireland, especially against the backdrop of a mothballed Stormont.
Given the fascination during the campaign with Lib Dem leader Tim Farron’s views on gay sex and abortion, it’s no surprise that the same scrutiny is now turning to the 10 DUP MPs. The answers (along with a tinge of climate change denial) might be no surprise either, but are causing concern among some in a Tory party already rather rattled by their leader’s unnecessary electoral self-own.
Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson – a rare cheery Tory yesterday, who saw the number of MPs in Scotland spiral from one to 13 – tweeted that she was “a Protestant Unionist about to marry an Irish Catholic”, partner Jen Wilson. She said she had received “categoric assurance” from May that gay rights would not be harmed by a deal with the DUP:
I told her there there was a number of things that count to me more than party. One of them is country, one of the others is LGBTI rights, and I asked for a categoric assurance that if any deal was done with the DUP there would be absolutely no rescinding of LGBTI rights in the rest of the UK and that we would try to use any influence that we had to advance LGBTI rights in Northern Ireland.
Davidson also labelled as “B****cks” – her asterisks, not mine, this is the Guardian – a claim by the Telegraph that Scotland’s Tories were set to “go their own way” in the wake of May’s hubristic result.
Also going nowhere, for now, are five key cabinet ministers. Shuffling the deck is hard when your hand is broken. Chancellor Philip Hammond, home secretary Amber Rudd, foreign secretary Boris Johnson, Brexit secretary David Davis and defence secretary Michael Fallon all stay put. But May’s closest aides, Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, described by one anonymous cabinet minister as “monsters who propped her up and sunk our party”, might not get one of her categoric assurances.
The thornier question is whether the PM’s own life cycle is longer than a mayfly. An optimistic reference in her speech to her ambition to “over the next five years build a country in which no one and no community is left behind” could prove to contain a glaring exception. With the rightwing press darting from cheering her efforts to “crush the saboteurs” by calling the snap election, to “she’s had her chips” in the hours afterwards, allies might be harder to find than an ordinary person at a Theresa May campaign rally.
Still, someone has to turn up for those Brexit negotiations 10 days from now: the talks May said she was concentrating on so much she couldn’t spare the time for TV debates. The talks she said would be fronted by Jeremy Corbyn if she lost six seats (she lost 13).
The losers who won
Who’d make predictions these days, but chances are it won’t be Corbyn at those Brexit chats. Nonetheless, the Labour leader, who lost the election but emerges as the closest thing to a winner, insisted he was “ready to serve”. A euphoric day for Labour (tempered by the occasional reality check that they were not the government) was dealt an extra dollop of homemade jam on Friday night when it took Kensington – the Kensington, one of London’s richest, if not evenly spread, constituencies – from the Tories by an elfin 20 votes.
The stream of Labour MPs confessing to their own faulty polling predictions provided extra balm to Camp Corbyn. Here’s Owen Smith, last year’s leadership challenger:
I was clearly wrong in feeling that Jeremy was unable to do this well and I think he’s proved me wrong and lots of people wrong and I take my hat off to him.
So where did that Labour surge come from? Memes, obviously, and a canny social media strategy. But beyond that, the answers were complex and indicative of a shrugging of the political landscape. There was the youth and student contribution. There was the fact that the disintegration of the Ukip vote did not land plumly in the laps of the Tories but sought out Labour too. There was the Labour manifesto, and the malfunctioning Conservative version. There was Wales. There was even Scotland.
Talking of which…
Continuing the theme of the day, the SNP won the most seats in Scotland and simultaneously received a thrashing. In 2015, they scooped all but three of the 59 constituencies; the others were doled out neatly one each to Labour, the Conservatives and the Lib Dems. Two years later, the SNP took home 35 seats, saying farewell to its biggest names on the way, and witnessed Labour leap up to seven, the Lib Dems to four, and the Tories to an eye-rubbing 13. It wasn’t all about talk of another independence referendum, insisted Nicola Sturgeon, while conceding it “undoubtedly” was a factor. Her deputy John Swinney thought the prospect of indyref2 was a “significant motivator”, saying the SNP would “have to be attentive to that”.
The Lib Dems, too, found that the promise of another vote wasn’t a huge vote-winner. Twelve seats is, mathematically, a chunky boost to the eight they won in 2015 (there was a brief dalliance with a ninth, but with Richmond Park returning to Zac Goldsmith after just six months in Sarah Olney’s hands, we’ll skim over that). Twelve seats is not, however, the party of the 48%. Then again, nor was May’s result, argued Farron, a mandate for hard Brexit.
Oh, and a Ukip leader resigned. Plus ça change, as Paul Nuttall probably wouldn’t like me to say.
At a glance:
- Caroline Lucas is sole glimmer of light on tough night for Greens.
- Pound recovers after sharp falls as political turmoil hits markets.
- Lesley Riddoch: Have we reached peak SNP? Don’t count on it.
- Olympic officials would resist DUP demand for Team GB to be Team UK.
- Catch up with the Guardian’s Election Daily podcast.
Read these
The BBC’s political editor Laura Kuenssberg assesses the mood inside the Tory party:
One minister predicted that, ‘slowly and reluctantly’, the party might rally round her. But sentiment in the party, never scientific, seems to be drifting away from allowing that situation to happen. Three MPs have publicly questioned her right to stay on. One senior Conservative told me she ‘has to go’, suggesting she has a ‘responsibility to the party’ to get the Queen’s Speech through, show the Conservatives can form the government, and then she ought to move aside.
Other MPs are gently exploring the possibility of submitting letters to the chairman of the 1922 committee – 48 would be required to trigger a leadership contest. Another former minister told me: ‘I just can’t see how she stays.’
In the New Statesman, Patrick Maguire says the Tory-DUP alliance poses a challenge to the future of Northern Ireland’s devolved legislature:
The closeness of the government to the DUP in the last parliament led to James Brokenshire, the Northern Ireland secretary, taking lines that were frankly nakedly partisan on issues such as Troubles legacy prosecutions. This, like the other points of disagreement between the DUP and Sinn Féin, was supposed to have been dealt with by the Stormont House and Fresh Start Agreements of 2014 and 2015.
Brokenshire’s posturing won him few admirers among the nationalist cohort at Westminster. If Nigel Dodds ends up wielding considerable influence over the next Tory government, he will have fewer still. There is very little trust and very little goodwill left on Sinn Féin’s part towards the UK government, and, indeed, its ability to broker a deal that saves the devolved institutions.
Breakthroughs of the day
- A record number of women were elected to the House of Commons: 208. (That’s only 32%, though, so still plenty of patriarchy left to ruffle.)
- Over half of MPs in the incoming parliament went to state comprehensives, which is somehow, staggeringly, the first time that has happened. The Sutton Trust finds 51% went to comprehensives and 29% were privately educated. And 3% of all MPs went to a single school, which was … drumroll … Eton.
- Preet Gill, winning Birmingham Edgbaston, became the first female Sikh MP; Tanmanjeet Dhesi, in Slough, is the first turban-wearing Sikh MP.
- There are now 52 minority ethnic MPs, according to thinktank British Future, which called it the “most diverse UK parliament ever”.
- And there is also a record number of LGBTQ MPs: at least 45.
The day in a tweet
Dear Theresa, it's not the number of MPs that counts it's how you use them. You have to do more with less that's all 😂👏👍
— Police Community (@PolComForum) June 9, 2017
And another thing
Like the snap election itself, the Snap email briefing is now over. Console yourself by signing up here for the Guardian morning briefing instead; you can read the latest edition here.
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Updated
Today’s Guardian editorial says Theresa May misjudged the electorate – and a lot of people misjudged Jeremy Corbyn:
What Mrs May and many others did not see was the mood for change among the British people. After seven years of fiscal austerity, with deep cuts in public services and a steady fall in real wages, millions of voters wanted a better and fairer way for Britain. Mrs May herself partially understood that, as her embrace of the just-about-managing and her disapproval of greedy City executives showed. But she failed to turn those words into deeds. Instead she campaigned as an inflexible ironclad, spurning debate, parroting inane slogans, insulting her opponents and botching her manifesto launch. It was an emotionally unintelligent campaign. At times it verged on the delusional and hubristic. And it ruthlessly exposed Mrs May’s many failings …
Yet, just as Mrs May squandered her advantage, so Mr Corbyn seized his. He offered hope, fairness and a better Britain. The party’s ambiguity on Brexit, one perhaps of accident rather than design, helped attract ex-Ukip voters while simultaneously keeping remainers on board. It was all delivered by a leader who surprised not just the electorate but probably also himself with the warmth of the response to his authenticity and honesty. On the campaign trail and in the interview studio, Mr Corbyn displayed all the empathy that Mrs May so singularly lacked. By the end of the campaign, Labour was a revived and effective party. It was rewarded by a surge in votes that carried it to a 40% share of the ballots cast for the first time since 2001. Those who said Mr Corbyn was unelectable look foolish today. Although much uncertainty still exists about the party’s capacity to work together, Labour must try to do so. There must be a recognition that this is Mr Corbyn’s party now.
It wasn’t quite the Oscars La La Land/Moonlight fiasco, but the announcement of the wrong winner as the Tories took Mansfield was results night’s biggest gaffe (if you don’t include calling a snap election in which the governing party loses its majority):
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For the first time, more than half of MPs elected to the House of Commons were educated in state comprehensive schools, according to a round-up of MPs educational backgrounds published by the Sutton Trust.
The new parliament will have 51% of MPs educated at comprehensives, compared with less than half in 2015, while the proportion of MPs who were privately educated falls to 29%.
Two-thirds of Labour MPs went to comprehensives, along with 38% of Tory MPs.
The shift comes as the Conservative party struggles with its manifesto commitment to open new grammar schools in England. The policy was pushed by Nick Timothy, May’s adviser, but it failed to impress voters and was downplayed during the election campaign.
Almost nine out of 10 of MPs are graduates, with 23% having Oxbridge degrees and 29% attending other Russell Group universities. Oxford, with 98 alumni in the House, has almost double Cambridge’s 52.
Sir Peter Lampl, founder of the Sutton Trust, said:
If parliament is to truly represent the nation as a whole, able people from all backgrounds should have the opportunity to become MPs.
While Theresa May will find in the DUP agreement on Brexit – they are pro, although Northern Ireland as a whole voted 56% to remain in the EU – there could be flashpoints on other issues.
The DUP manifesto made commitments to retain the pensions “triple lock” and universal winter fuel allowance – both of which the Tories pledged to scrap.
DUP leader Arlene Foster said she would “resist any assault” on the universal benefit in Northern Ireland.
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Bernie Sanders has congratulated Jeremy Corbyn on Labour’s performance in the general election. The Vermont senator – who narrowly failed to win his bid for the Democratic nomination against Hillary Clinton in the 2016 race for the White House – said he had watched the UK results coming in on Thursday and was very pleased about the party’s showing.
“I am delighted to see Labour do so well,” the Vermont senator said in a Facebook post, linking to a Guardian news story. He went on:
All over the world, people are rising up against austerity and massive levels of income and wealth inequality. People in the UK, the US and elsewhere want governments that represent all the people, not just the 1%.
I congratulate Jeremy Corbyn for running a very effective campaign.
The Times’ editorial today is damning. Usually paywalled, the editor has helpfully tweeted out a copy of the leader column that calls the current situation a “national emergency”:
The Conservatives’ calamitous showing in the election has left Britain effectively leaderless at a moment when its fate depends on leadership.
This crisis has been years in the making. Mrs May’s party believes that government is in its DNA. Yet it has failed to win a majority in five of the past six general elections and it has left the country all but ungovernable as a consequence of two extraordinary miscalculations. The first of these was David Cameron’s decision to proceed with a European referendum, from which he had expected to be spared by continued coalition with the Liberal Democrats, despite his failure to win from Brussels a meaningful renegotiation of Britain’s relationship with the EU. The second was Mrs May’s decision to call a snap election, against the advice of her chief political consultant, with a manifesto described by the former chancellor George Osborne as the worst in the party’s history.
Mrs May is now fatally wounded. If she does not realise this it is another grave misjudgment. More likely, she is steeling herself to provide what continuity she can as her party girds itself for an election to replace her.
The poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, has written a poem for the election, entitled Campaign. It appears on the front page of the Guardian this morning:
In which her body was a question-mark
querying her lies; her mouth a
ballot-box that bit the hand that
fed. Her eyes? They swivelled
for a jackpot win. Her heart was
a stolen purse;
her rhetoric an empty vicarage,
the windows smashed.
Then her feet grew sharp
stilettos, awkward.
Then she had balls, believe it.
When she woke,
her nose was bloody, difficult.
The furious young
ran towards her through the
fields of wheat.
Anushka Asthana and Rowena Mason report that cabinet ministers and a string of Conservative MPs are demanding that Theresa May sacks one or both of her closest advisers:
Several politicians told the Guardian that Fiona Hill and Nick Timothy, who act as the prime minister’s joint chiefs of staff in Downing Street, must take responsibility for the poor result, which saw the Tories lose their majority.
The pair were at the centre of recriminations flying back and forth between MPs on WhatsApp groups and even resulted in one cabinet minister branding the pair as “monsters who propped her up and sunk our party”.
Much of the anger centred on a manifesto policy on social care, drawn up by Timothy, along with Ben Gummer – the Cabinet Office minister who lost his seat – and policy chief John Godfrey, which resulted in a humiliating U-turn that tightened the polls.
When asked whether she was planning any personnel changes, May said she was focusing on forming a government but said those matters were for another day.
The White House has issued a readout of the call between US president Donald Trump and Theresa May.
It offered no explicit congratulations, though it mentioned “warm support” for the PM:
President Donald J Trump spoke today with prime minister Theresa May of the United Kingdom to offer his warm support regarding the election.
President Trump emphasised his commitment to the United States-United Kingdom special relationship and underscored that he looks forward to working with the prime minister on shared goals and interests in the years to come.
Speaking on Friday to BBC Radio 4’s The World at One, Jonathan Powell – Tony Blair’s chief of staff at the time of the Good Friday agreement – said a deal with the DUP could threaten the peace process in Northern Ireland:
I do think it’s a mistake to go into government with the ‘support of our friends’ in the DUP. Even John Major avoided doing that and the reason he avoided that is the peace process is based on a balance that the British government has made it clear it is neutral in Northern Ireland, it doesn’t take sides. Once you have their support, you are no longer neutral.
It matters for two big reasons. First, we haven’t managed to get the executive back up and running in Northern Ireland because of divisions between the two sides. The British government were trying to mediate between the two sides to get an administration up and running again and of course now it can’t possibly have that role of mediating.
And secondly I think it’s a mistake because one of the big issues in the Brexit negotiations is the border between north and south. Now the DUP is a minority in its view about Brexit, it’s in favour of Brexit. This is going to be a very real problem.
Whatever you put on a piece of paper, you’re living there with a minority government. That’s dependent on the DUP. You get to a crucial issue and then they say: ‘Remember what we want in terms of talks in Northern Ireland’, and the government has a choice. Do they say: ‘We’re not giving you that. We’ll let the government collapse’? Or do they just bend a little on that issue – it’s just one small issue, it doesn’t matter?
But beyond that, the government can’t possibly be seen as neutral on Northern Ireland now if it puts itself at the mercy of the DUP.
Labour has staged a major upset by taking Kensington, one of the wealthiest constituencies in London, from the incumbent Conservative candidate Victoria Borwick, in a dramatic result 24 hours after polling closed.
Emma Dent Coad, the Labour candidate and local councillor, overturned Borwick’s 7,000 majority by just 20 votes. She took 16,333 (42.23%) of the vote compared with Borwick’s 16,313 (42.18%), representing a swing of 11.11% to Labour.
After the second count in the early hours, officials were sent home to rest before the third and final count began at 6pm on Friday evening.
Supporters for all the candidates made their way back to the Kensington town hall for the count, although there was notably more supporters for Dent Coad. The Conservatives were said to have accepted they had not won earlier on Friday.
There were also hints of the contest being a bitter fight between rich and poor – with Borwick seen to represent the richer members of the constituency and Dent Coad the poorer. Borwick promised that the fight to win the seat back would begin on Saturday.
The atmosphere was electric and emotional outside the hall where about 40 members of local community groups from some of Kensington’s most marginalised neighbourhoods were waiting to give Dent Coad a hero’s welcome as she walked out to greet them.
After chanting her name, the crowd fell silent to hear their new MP speak. She told them:
Kensington has spoken. Always speak out, never be silent again.
Welcome to our fresh live blog, as Saturday looms with Theresa May still in 10 Downing Street, still prime minister, but with an uncertain day, week and month(s) ahead.
On Friday, in the wake of an election that wiped out her own majority, a defiant May insisted she could provide “certainty” with a minority Conservative government relying on support from Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist party and its 10 MPs.
But her initial failure to recognise the scale of the setback – or to commiserate with colleagues who had lost their seats in what many Tories see as an unnecessary electoral gamble – has caused further irritation in the ranks.
The prime minister was forced to address this in a later statement, in which she did acknowledge that all was not rosy:
I wanted to achieve a larger majority. That was not the result we secured. And I’m sorry for all those candidates and hard-working party workers who weren’t successful, but also for those colleagues who were MPs and ministers and contributed so much to our country and who lost their seats and who didn’t deserve to lose their seats.
She also confirmed that her top five cabinet ministers – chancellor Philip Hammond, home secretary Amber Rudd, foreign secretary Boris Johnson, Brexit secretary David Davis, and defence secretary Michael Fallon – would stay in their roles.
But pressure is growing on May to step aside herself, or to sack her two key advisers, Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, to whom many in the party attribute the car-crash campaign performance.
We will have live updates on the live blog throughout Saturday. Join us in the comments or find me on Twitter @Claire_Phipps.
