Swept up in the euphoria of dealing with what's looking a serious blow to the Conservatives in the UK election today Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was embarrassingly caught out on camera today.

Mr Corbyn accidentally brushed one of his female MP's on her breast during a high-five gone wrong.

Mr Corbyn went for a celebratory high-five with Emily Thornberry, Labour's MP for Islington, amid celebrations of their party's success in the initial exit poll from today.

But the high-five went south when Ms Thornberry didn't reciprocate the gesture leading to Mr Corbyn following through on his own and placing his hand on her breast instead.

Mr Corbyn was quick to remove his hand as the pair attempted to laugh off the awkward situation.</s>The Paddy Power website has odds on the Labour leader entering Downing Street after this evening at 10/11 – while it has left Theresa May at a less likely 5/4. Before the exit poll was announced earlier this evening, bookmakers had odds as long as 12-1 for Corbyn to win the election.

Sky Bet had Mr Corbyn at even odds with Theresa May to become the next Prime Minister, but the odds shifted at 1.57am to give Mrs May favourable odds at 8/11 against Mr Corbyn’s 6/4. Lee Price, head of PR at Paddy Power, told the Independent earlier the company would be “skint” if Corbyn became Prime Minister.

Mr Corbyn had previously been given long odds by betting companies before the exit poll was called

He said: “We’ve had 84 per cent of all of our bets on Jeremy Corbyn to become PM. “If he does win we are going to be skint. We’ll need a magic money tree if that happens!”</s>Britain’s Corbyn calls for May to quit after election losses

British Prime Minister Theresa May should step down after losses for her Conservative Party in the general election, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said on Friday.

May “has lost Conservative seats, lost votes, lost support and lost confidence. I would have thought that’s enough to go,” Corbyn said after being re-elected in his Islington North constituency in central London.

May’s Conservative party was poised to win the snap election on Friday but lose its parliamentary majority, according to a shock exit poll released as polling stations across Britain closed on Thursday evening.

It projected that May’s party could fall from 330 to 314 seats, short of a majority in the 650-seat House of Commons.

May surprised the country in April by calling the snap election, seeking to shore up her 17-seat majority ahead of two years of gruelling talks with the European Union over its departure from the bloc.

For Corbyn, the ruling party’s losses showed voters had “turned their backs on the politics of austerity”.

“What’s happened is people have said they have had quite enough of austerity,” he said, adding it was time for a government that is “truly representative of all the people of this country.”

Earlier in the night, Corbyn said his campaign had upended the country’s political landscape.

“Whatever the final result, our positive campaign has changed politics for the better,” he said in a tweet after the exit poll predicted unexpected gains for Labour.</s>UK Prime Minister Theresa was the biggest loser of the night, winning the most seats, but losing her majority and now facing calls to step down. Meanwhile, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has risen from the ashes and managed to avoid the defeat so many within his own party were fearing — or hoping for, in some cases.

The Scottish Nationalist Party — which was angling for another referendum on independence — lost 21 seats, putting the issue of Scotland breaking away from the United Kingdom further back on the agenda.

The situation leaves Theresa May in a quandary. In theory, being the party with the most seats, she has first pick at forming a government and will go to Buckingham Palace to ask Queen Elizabeth II for permission to form one.

Her problem, however is that — alone — she has no majority in the House of Commons. She could try and form an alliance with the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland, but that would depend on the terms of their agreement.

May also faces the prospect of having lost the faith of her own party. Having called the snap election to increase her working majority of just 17 to give her a mandate to go to Brussels and argue her case for Brexit, she has failed and now looks nothing like the "strong and stable" leader she espoused herself to be ahead of the election.

In the event that she cannot form a workable government, then she would have to resign, which would then make Labour's Corbyn prime minister. That would certainly be a problem for many of his own MPs who — weeks ago — wanted the election, so that they could lose it and oust him as leader.

​Corbyn was never the front runner as Labour leader, but came from the back riding on a wave of left-wing support and the fact that people could become Labour supporters for as little as US$4. Although he lost a vote of no confidence among his MPs — by 172 to 40 — he won a second leadership challenge in 2016.

Having confounded the polls and turned what was looking to be a terrible defeat into something of a victory, Corbyn could — theoretically — become prime minister and possibly form an association with the Scottish Nationalist Party — who have said they are willing — and gain a majority.

His problem is that Brexit is precisely what puts him at odds with many in his party. As a euroskeptic, it was generally felt he ran a lackluster campaign to remain in the EU during the run-up to the referendum, June 23, 2016, despite in being Labour policy to remain in the EU. He even went on holiday during the referendum campaign.

If he were to climb into bed with the Scottish Nationalists — who want independence from the UK and who backed remaining in the EU — it would put him is a very difficult position when he faces his Brexit negotiating partners in Brussels.

​With stalemate in parliament, it is difficult to see how the first round of Brexit talks — due in the week beginning June 19 — can go ahead with any credibility. If Theresa May — as she has said — has no intention of resigning, she will be seen as a 'lame duck' by the other EU member states.

Worse still, the other way out is for another election in the autumn, which in itself would delay the Brexit talks further.</s>London - British Prime Minister Theresa May should step down after losses for her Conservative Party in the general election, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said on Friday.

May "has lost Conservative seats, lost votes, lost support and lost confidence. I would have thought that's enough to go," Corbyn said after being re-elected in his Islington North constituency in central London.

May's Conservative party was poised to win the snap election on Friday but lose its parliamentary majority, according to a shock exit poll released as polling stations across Britain closed on Thursday evening.

It projected that May's party could fall from 330 to 314 seats, short of a majority in the 650-seat House of Commons.

May surprised the country in April by calling the snap election, seeking to shore up her 17-seat majority ahead of two years of gruelling talks with the European Union over its departure from the bloc.

For Corbyn, the ruling party's losses showed voters had "turned their backs on the politics of austerity".

"What's happened is people have said they have had quite enough of austerity," he said, adding it was time for a government that is "truly representative of all the people of this country."

Earlier in the night, Corbyn said his campaign had upended the country's political landscape.

"Whatever the final result, our positive campaign has changed politics for the better," he said in a tweet after the exit poll predicted unexpected gains for Labour.</s>Labour Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry said early this morning that Labour would refuse to do a deal with any parties, but would put forward a programme for government and just expect other parties to back it.

If parties such as the Lib Dems, Greens or SNP voted Labour’s plans down then they would effectively be allowing the Conservatives into government, she said.

On that basis, it’s possible that Labour could actually form a government with Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister.

Mrs May said on Twitter on May 20: “If I lose just six seats I will lose this election and Jeremy Corbyn will be sitting down to negotiate with Europe.”

It seems she has indeed lost six seats - or more.

The exit poll published by broadcasters actually suggested the Conservatives had lost 16 seats, down from the 330 they won in 2015 to the 314 they are predicted to win this time.

And even she has said that in these circumstances, Jeremy Corbyn should take over.

Labour Deputy Leader Tom Watson reminded Mrs May of her promise, after he was re-elected this morning.
• Election results: Trump, Brexit and now a hung Parliament show the experts know nothing

After the result was announced in his West Bromwich West constituency, he said: “We’re going to hold her to that.”

There’s another problem for Theresa May.
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Her own party may be furious at her, both for calling and unnecessary election and for running a lousy campaign.

Will they forgive her? Some Conservatives may demand that Mrs May resign and make way for a new leader.

George Osborne, the former Tory Chancellor, said the mood in the party "will quickly turn to anger".</s>London: British Prime Minister Theresa May's gamble in calling an early election backfired spectacularly, as her Conservative Party lost its majority in Parliament and pressure mounted on her Friday to resign.

The shock result throws British politics into chaos and could send Britain's negotiations to leave the European Union — due to start June 19 — into disarray. The pound lost more than 2 cents against the dollar.

With 636 of 650 seats in the House of Commons declared, the Conservatives had 310 to the Labour Party's 258. Even if the Conservatives won all the remaining seats, the party would fall short of the 326 needed for an outright majority. Before the election the Conservatives had 330 seats and Labour 229.

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May called the snap election in the hope of increasing her majority and strengthening Britain's hand in exit talks with the European Union with a "strong and stable government." Instead, the result means the Conservatives will need to rely on support from smaller parties to govern, with more instability and the chance of yet another early election.

"This is a very bad moment for the Conservative Party, and we need to take stock," Conservative lawmaker Anna Soubry said. "And our leader needs to take stock as well."

The results confounded those who said Labour's left-wing leader, Jeremy Corbyn, was electorally toxic. Written off by many pollsters, Labour surged in the final weeks of the campaign. It drew strong support from young people, who appeared to have turned out to vote in bigger-than-expected numbers.

As she was resoundingly re-elected to her Maidenhead seat in southern England, May looked tense and did not spell out what she planned to do.

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"The country needs a period of stability, and whatever the results are the Conservative Party will ensure we fulfil our duty in ensuring that stability," she said.

Many predicted she would soon be gone.

"Clearly if she's got a worse result than two years ago and is almost unable to form a government, then she, I doubt, will survive in the long term as Conservative Party leader," former Conservative Treasury chief George Osborne said on ITV.

Corbyn said May should "go ... and make way for a government that is truly representative of all the people of this country." Speaking after being re-elected to his London seat, Corbyn said the election result means "politics has changed" and voters have rejected Conservative austerity.

The result was bad news for the Scottish National Party, which lost about 20 of its 54 seats. Among the casualties was Alex Salmond, a former first minister of Scotland and one of the party's highest-profile lawmakers.

The losses complicate the SNP's plans to push for a new referendum on Scottish independence as Britain prepares to leave the EU. Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson said the idea of a new independence referendum "is dead. That's what we have seen tonight."

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May had hoped the election would focus on Brexit, but that never happened, as both the Conservatives and Labour said they would respect voters' wishes and go through with the divorce.

May, who went into the election with a reputation for quiet competence, was criticized for a lackluster campaigning style and for a plan to force elderly people to pay more for their care, a proposal her opponents dubbed the "dementia tax." As the polls suggested a tightening race, pollsters spoke less often of a landslide and raised the possibility that May's majority would be eroded.

Then, attacks that killed 30 people in Manchester and London twice brought the campaign to a halt, sent a wave of anxiety through Britain and forced May to defend the government's record on fighting terrorism. Corbyn accused the Conservatives of undermining Britain's security by cutting the number of police on the streets.

Eight people were killed near London Bridge on Saturday when three men drove a van into pedestrians and then stabbed revelers in an area filled with bars and restaurants. Two weeks earlier, a suicide bomber killed 22 people as they were leaving an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester.

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Rachel Sheard, who cast her vote near the site of the London Bridge attack, said the election certainly wasn't about Brexit.

"I don't think that's in the hearts and minds of Londoners at the minute, (not) nearly as much as security is," said Sheard, 22. "It was very scary on Saturday."

Steven Fielding, a professor of politics at the University of Nottingham, said Britain had seen an election "in which the personal authority of a party leader has disappeared in an unprecedented way."

"If she had got the majority she wanted, she would have been a supreme political colossus," he said. "She did not get that and she's a hugely diminished figure. She's a zombie prime minister."</s>LONDON — In the overnight hours of the Labour surge when results pointed toward a hung Parliament, there was a moment of levity during celebrations for a colleague of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s in north London.

A missed “high-five” that ended in an awkward place.

As Corbyn and Labour Member of Parliament Emily Thornberry embraced, pointing at the other with huge smiles, the opposition leader’s attempt at a “high-five” wasn’t seen by his colleague and landed palm flat in a thud against her chest.

Video of the slightly awkward moment was popular on social media Friday.

Labour high spirits were dampened later in the day when Prime Minister Theresa May, in spite of an election debacle that saw her Conservatives lose their parliamentary majority, told the nation she would stay on in a minority government coalition.</s>LONDON (AP) — An exit poll suggested Thursday that British Prime Minister Theresa May’s gamble in calling an early election has backfired spectacularly, with her Conservative Party in danger of losing its majority in Parliament.

An opposition Labour Party that had been written off by many pollsters surged in the final weeks of a campaign that was marred by deadly attacks in Manchester and London. If accurate, the result will confound those who said Labour’s left-wing leader, Jeremy Corbyn, was electorally toxic.

The survey predicted the Conservatives will get 314 seats and the Labour Party 266. It projected 34 for the Scottish National Party and 14 for the Liberal Democrats.

Based on interviews with voters leaving polling stations across the country, the poll is conducted for a consortium of U.K. broadcasters and regarded as a reliable, though not exact, indicator of the likely result.

If confirmed, the result will be humiliating for May, who called a snap election in the hope of increasing her majority and strengthening Britain’s hand in exit talks with the European Union. If she has failed, she could face pressure to resign.

“If the poll is anything like accurate, this is completely catastrophic for the Conservatives and for Theresa May,” former Treasury chief George Osborne told ITV.

A party needs to win 326 seats in the 650-seat House of Commons to form a majority government. The Conservatives held 330 seats in the last Parliament, compared with 229 for Labour, 54 for the Scottish National Party and nine for the Liberal Democrats.

During the last election, in 2015, the Conservatives did better than the exit poll predicted, and senior Conservatives said Thursday that they would take a wait-and-see approach.

“It’s still very, very early in the evening,” said Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire. “It’s too early in the night to be drawing conclusions.”

The forecast is much better than expected for the opposition Labour Party, which had been expected to lose seats.

It could also be bad news for the Scottish National Party, which is predicted to lose 20 of its 54 seats — though the pollsters caution that there is a lot of uncertainty around the Scottish forecast.

A big loss could complicate the SNP’s plans to push for a new referendum on Scottish independence as Britain prepares to leave the European Union.

The poll was released after polls closed at 10 p.m. (2100GMT), ending an unsettled national election held in the shadow of three deadly attacks in as many months.

Results will come in overnight for all 650 seats in the House of Commons.

May called the election three years ahead of schedule, at a time when her party was well ahead in the polls. But attacks that killed 30 people in Manchester and London twice brought the campaign to a halt, sent a wave of anxiety through Britain and forced May to defend the government’s record on fighting terrorism.

Eight people were killed near London Bridge on Saturday when three men drove a van into pedestrians then stabbed revelers in an area filled with bars and restaurants. Two weeks earlier, a suicide bomber killed 22 people as they were leaving a concert in Manchester, and five people died during a vehicle and knife attack near Parliament on March 22.

Rachel Sheard, who cast her vote near the site of the London Bridge attack, said the election had not gone as expected — and that it certainly wasn’t about Brexit.

“I don’t think that’s in the hearts and minds of Londoners at the minute, (not) nearly as much as security is,” said Sheard, 22. “It was very scary on Saturday.”

When May called the election seven weeks ago, she was seeking to capitalize on opinion polls showing that her Conservatives had a wide lead over Labour. She became prime minister through a Conservative Party leadership contest when Cameron resigned after voters backed leaving the European Union.The time seemed right to seek her own mandate from the British people. She argued that increasing the Conservative majority in Parliament would strengthen Britain’s hand in EU exit talks.

But things did not go to plan.

Brexit failed to emerge as a major issue in the campaign, as both the Conservatives and Labour said they would respect voters’ wishes and go through with the divorce.

May, who went into the election with a reputation for quiet competence, was criticized for a lackluster campaigning style and for a plan to force elderly people to pay more for their care, a proposal her opponents dubbed the “dementia tax.” As the polls suggested a tightening race, pollsters spoke less often of a landslide and raised the possibility that May’s majority would be eroded.

In her final message to voters, May tried to put the focus back on Brexit.

“I can only build that better country and get the right deal in Brussels with the support of the British people,” she said. “So whoever you have voted for in the past, if that is the future you want then vote Conservative today and we can all go forward together.”

Corbyn, an old school left-winger widely written off at the start of the campaign, has drawn thousands of people to upbeat rallies and energized young voters with his plans to boost spending on health and education after years of Conservative austerity.

Corbyn told supporters at his final rally that Labour’s campaign had “changed the debate and given people hope. Hope that it doesn’t have to be like this; that inequality can be tackled; that austerity can be ended; that you can stand up to the elites and the cynics. This is the new center ground.”

Security dominated the late stages of the campaign, after the attacks in Manchester and London. May said this week that she would consider rewriting human rights legislation if it gets in the way of tackling extremism.

Corbyn, meanwhile, accused Conservatives of undermining Britain’s security by cutting the number of police on the streets.

While security was on many voters’ minds, it was far from the only issue.

“It’s important, but it’s only one issue amongst several,” said 68-year-old Mike Peacroft. “I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s at the top. Obviously at my end of the (age) spectrum I’m more interested in things like pensions and so forth, NHS health care — plus schooling, those are really my main concerns.”</s>The counting for the United Kingdom general election started on Friday early morning. As initial numbers pour in, the Labour Party have won 154 and was a little ahead of the Conservatives who has bagged 140 so far.

The Labours have managed to retain their seats in Newcastle Central, Houghton, Sunderland South, Birmingham Ladywood, Manchester Central, and Cambridge among others. The Conservatives won seats in Uxbridge, Copeland, Chesham, Ribble Valley, Norwich North and Cleethorpeks among others.

According to BBC exit poll, the Conservatives are predicted to win 322 seats against the Labour Party’s 261. Meanwhile, the Scottish National Party and the Liberal Democrats are expected to win 32 and 13 seats, respectively. There were 76 seats which were being too close to call, the BBC poll said. Other opinion polls had earlier suggested that the Conservatives would take a lead and retain control of Parliament. However, a day before the election day, the Labour Party managed to narrow the gap.

More than 46.9 million electorate from across England, Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland voted to pick 650 MPs from over 3,300 candidates. The final results are expected by Friday afternoon. To form a majority in the House of Commons, a party has to win 326 seats.

The incumbent prime minister, Theresa May, is competing against the Labour Party’s Jeremy Corbyn. In the 2015 elections, the Conservatives held 331 seats, the Labour Party bagged 232, the Scottish National Party had 56 and Liberal Democrat won 8 seats.

Following the early election results, the pound fell sharply as the market had expected a clear victory for May. Sterling fell as low as $1.27, reported BBC. At 1.30 am, the pound even hit a new low of $1.2696. However, it started to recover a little as Conservatives made gains in Scotland, The Telegraph reported.

“It is fair to say markets had been a little complacent about this result,” a senior analyst at ETX Capital, Neil Wilson, told BBC. “If the election results in a hung parliament, the pound could fall as low as $1.25 on Friday.”

On April 18, May had called for a snap election three years earlier than scheduled, saying it would help Britain make a smooth exit from the European Union. The last few weeks of campaigning have been marred with national security concerns with the country facing successive attacks claimed by militant groups.

On the night of June 3, a van drove into people near the London Bridge, killing eight people and injuring several. Two weeks before that 22 people had died in a suicide bombing at a concert in Manchester. In March 2017, a man had mowed people down with his vehicle on the Westminster bridge while heading to the Parliament building. At least 40 others were injured in the incident.
Polls open in the United Kingdom, with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and incumbent Theresa May of the Conservatives battling in a tight race, according to final opinion polling, to become prime minister.