Britons vote in key election, outcome uncertain

The contenders: Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn

Britain went to the polls on Thursday in a snap election to choose who will lead the country out of the European Union, after a campaign overshadowed by terror attacks.

A snap election is an election called earlier than expected. Generally it refers to an election in a parliamentary system called when not required (either by law or convention), usually to capitalize on a unique electoral opportunity or to decide a pressing issue.

With security high, millions of voters are casting their ballots in polling stations ranging from schools and public buildings to churches, pubs and even a windmill and a launderette.

Polling experts — many of whom failed to predict the historic referendum vote to leave the European Union last year — are now wary of calling the outcome, although Theresa May remains the favourite.

But predictions of her expected margin of victory vary widely, and one shock forecast model even predicted May could lose her majority of 17 in the 650-seat House of Commons.

The 60-year-old vicar’s daughter has presented herself as a safe pair of hands for the Brexit talks and said her 68-year-old rival would be “alone and Nak3d in the negotiating chamber.”

“Get those negotiations wrong and the consequences will be dire,” she said on a final campaign stop on Wednesday.

Jeremy Corbyn, a veteran socialist who has never held ministerial office and defied the odds to win the Labour leadership two years ago, urged supporters in Glasgow to think big on his last day of campaigning.

“Wouldn’t it be great if, on Friday, we woke up to … a Labour government that will be a government for all of our communities across the whole of the country,” he said.

AFP