How Theresa May’s Snap Election Delivered Britain a Hung Parliament

Prime Minister Theresa May’s move to call a surprise election to shore up her thin parliamentary majority going into Brexit negotiations has backfired spectacularly. With 649 of 650 constituencies counted, her Conservative Party dropped 12 seats—and lost its majority in the House of Commons. May still intends to form a government with the help of Northern Ireland’s pro-Brexit Democratic Unionist Party. Together, they’ll have 327 seats, one more than needed.

The Conservatives flipped just five Labour seats; Jeremy Corbyn’s party outperformed expectations, winning 27 Tory-held constituencies. The biggest loser, though, was the Scottish National Party, which gave up 19 of its 54 seats. Of those, 12 went to the Tories. In all, 71 seats switched hands on Thursday.

The biggest winner was Jeremy Corbyn and his Labour Party. While their 29-seat gain didn’t yield a majority, the result illustrated growing grassroots support and strong turnout among younger voters.

Turnout among voters in Labour-won seats was almost four percentage points higher on average than in 2015. In contrast, Tory-won seats showed just a 2-point average increase. As for the SNP, its 5-point turnout dip helps explain the party’s thumping.

Theresa May’s newest MPs may have some discouraging words for her Brexit ambitious. Of the 20 seats that Tories newly occupy, 13 voted to remain in the European Union. Meanwhile, around half of Labour’s new seats voted to leave, underscoring a confused political situation.

So what will history remember about this election—beyond May’s epic miscalculation? It’s the first time since 1997 that Conservatives have lost seats and the first decline ever for the SNP. More important is whether Thursday’s result leads to a pair of course corrections over independence: if the U.K. takes a more conciliatory approach to Brexit and if Scotland shelves a second independence referendum.