The U.K. Election Has Produced No Clear Winner

The British political landscape was clouded by uncertainty once again on Friday morning as no single party won an overall parliamentary majority in the June 8 snap election, leaving the country rudderless with only days to go before negotiations begin over withdrawal from the European Union.

The Conservative Party of British Prime Minister Theresa May won the most seats by the slimmest of margins, but lost her majority to form an effective government — an enormous blow for the Prime Minister, who called the election in order to consolidate power. The British media reported she had no intention of resigning, but was working to form a minority government.

With all but 3 of the seats declared, the Conservatives, or “Tories,” had taken 316 seats, which means voters have elected their second hung parliament in less than a decade. The Conservatives will now have to turn to other parties to cobble together a workable majority — most likely the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland, which won 10 seats.

The result is being billed as one of the biggest political upsets in the country’s history, with the Labour Party of far-left Jeremy Corbyn defying expectations and projected to gain 265 seats in Parliament. Corbyn suggested he too would be ready to form a government. “I think it’s pretty clear who won this election,” he told the BBC on Friday morning. “We’re ready to serve the people who have given their trust to us.”

The hung parliament could result in a phase of political instability for Britain. Some analysts are speculating a second general election, which would further destabilize upcoming Brexit negotiations that are expected to start on June 19.

Back in April, the prime minister called the election as polls pointed to a landslide result for the her party. The gamble backfired. On Friday morning, it became clear the Tories lost seats in the south of the country while failing to break into Labour’s heartlands up north.

The huge setback dashes May’s hopes to strengthen her hand in the upcoming “Brexit” negotiations with the E.U. Brexit Secretary David Davis suggesting to Sky News that the lost majority could amount to the Tories losing their mandate for a “hard Brexit”— where the country would leave both the E.U. customs and single market.

It also calls into question her longevity as leader of the party. “Clearly if she’s got a worse result than two years ago and is almost unable to form a government then I doubt she will survive in the long term as Conservative party leader,” former Conservative Chancellor, George Osborne, told the British press, Financial Times reports.

Brexit talks with E.U. leaders were due to begin in 10 days time. Still, the referendum was not the main issue informing Thursday’s vote. Leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn called on May to resign as it became clear that the people “turned their backs on the politics of austerity,” he said after winning his seat of Islington North in the early hours of Friday morning. “[Labour] made a really positive offer to an electorate who is fed up with austerity, that has doubts about globalization, and the neo-liberal economic model we have had for so long,” Tim Bale, Professor of Politics at Queen Mary University of London tells TIME.

The biggest scalps of the night, to the benefit of Labour, included Cabinet Office minister Ben Gummer in Ipswich and Liberal Democrat’s Nick Clegg, the former deputy prime minister. The pound tumbled by close to 2% after an initial BBC exit poll, which predicted a hung parliament.