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Theresa May under pressure as top aides quit after election fiasco

Saturday, 10 June 2017 2:45 PM [ Last Update: Saturday, 10 June 2017 6:37 PM ]

British Prime Minister Theresa May was forced to relinquish her two closest aides on Saturday. (Photo by AFP)

British Prime Minister Theresa May's two closest advisers have resigned amid mounting pressure on her to sack them over their role in the Conservative Party’s “disastrous” election campaign.

May's joint chiefs of staff Fiona Hill and Nick Timothy stepped down on Saturday, the party announced.

Many Conservatives blame the pair for what they describe as the party's disastrous campaign and unpopular election platform, which led to the party’s failure in the general election that was held on Thursday.

Some senior lawmakers have made the removal of Hill and Timothy as a condition for continuing to support May as prime minister.

Theresa May's former senior advisers Fiona Hill (L) and Nick Timothy. (File photo)

May had called for a snap election in April in hopes of getting an increased majority that could have strengthened her position before going into two years of intense negotiations with the European Union about Britain’s departure from the bloc.

Snap election is an election in a parliamentary system called when not required usually to capitalize on a unique electoral opportunity.

May’s election gamble has spectacularly backfired. British voters dealt her a devastating blow on Thursday, wiping out her parliamentary majority and throwing the country into political turmoil.

Conservatives won 318 seats in the 650-member House of Commons followed by the main opposition Labour Party which clinched 262 seats. May’s party is short of the 326 it needed for an outright majority and fairly down from the 330 seats it had before the election.

"From hubris to humiliation," said the left-leaning Guardian. "May stares into the abyss," wrote The Times, while Conservative-supporting The Sun tabloid said succinctly: "She's had her chips."

A television cameraman outside 10 Downing Street in London on June 10, 2017, reads a copy of *The Daily Mirror* newspaper with the headline "Coalition of Crackpots" the day after the general election resulted in a hung parliament and British Prime Minister Theresa May forming a minority government. (Photo by AFP)

Announcing his resignation in an article for the Conservative Home website, Timothy admitted that the campaign had failed to communicate. He, however, called on MPs to "get behind" the prime minster. He said that nothing should be allowed to get in the way of the process of forming a government and beginning Brexit talks.

The pair resigned as May is busy with appointing new members of her government after several of them lost their seats in Parliament as the result of the electron.

The premier, who has said she will stay in power, is now prepared to start negotiations with the Democratic Unionists to form a government.

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