British elections and Brexit: EU leaders closing in on May - by Eric Maurice

In the wake of her failure to get a parliamentary majority at Thursday's (8 June) election, EU political leaders are putting pressure on UK prime minister Theresa May over a possible derailing of Brexit talks.

"We don't know when Brexit talks start. We know when they must end. Do your best to avoid a 'no deal' as result of 'no negotiations'," warned European Council president Donald Tusk, in a post on Twitter on Friday morning.

May's Conservative government won 318 seats in the House of Commons, falling short of a majority by 8 seats.

May has asked Queen Elizabeth for permission to form a minority government with the support of Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which won 10 seats.

Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour Party's leader, said however that May should resign and let another party form a government.

"There isn’t a parliamentary majority for anybody at the present time, the party that has lost in this election is the Conservative Party," he said.

Read more: EU leaders closing in on May

Britain-Theresa May is a disaster Could Labour’s Corbyn Actually Win the British Elections? - by  Maria Margaronis

 This may be the strangest election of my lifetime. Called by Prime Minister Theresa May after she vowed repeatedly that she’d do no such thing, it seemed at first like an assured triumph for the Tories—and possibly the coup de grâce for Jeremy Corbyn’s divided and floundering Labour Party. But six days before the vote, the poll gap has shrunk from 22 points to an astonishing four, with some projections even predicting a hung Parliament.

Corbyn, seems to have found his voice. Always happier on the campaign trail than in Parliament, he comes across as direct, relaxed, and confident. The sanctimonious tinge has gone; so has the nervous pretense of being above the game. He’s being allowed to go for broke and campaign (for the most part) on what he believes. For the first time since the Blair era, the Labour manifesto makes a wholehearted argument against austerity. It promises to restore the welfare state through public investment in the health service, energy, and transport; universal childcare; and free university tuition—to be financed by reversing cuts to corporation taxes and raising taxes for those earning £80,000 or more. Zero-hours contracts will be banned. The minimum wage will go up to £10 an hour. Borrowing will fund a national investment bank for infrastructure development.

Note EU-Digest: Vote for Corbyn and make Britain really great again by rejoining the EU  

Read  more: Could Labour’s Corbyn Actually Win the British Elections? | The Nation