Theresa May’s key aides Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill have resigned, taking the blame for her disastrous election campaign.

Mr Timothy said he was taking responsibility for the social care U-turn which torpedoed her manifesto, acknowledging he had “oversight of our policy programme”.

“In particular, I regret the decision not to include in the manifesto a ceiling as well as a floor in our proposal to help meet the increasing cost of social care,” he added.

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A Conservative spokesman quickly announced that Fiona Hill, Ms May’s other joint chief of staff, had also resigned.

The twin departures will ease the pressure on Ms May herself, after a survey showed that majority of Tory members believe she should step down.

Strikingly, Mr Timothy urged Conservative MPs to “unite behind the Prime Minister, and focus on the need to heal the divisions in our country.”

The appeal reflected the growing belief among Tory MPs that Ms May should stay only in the short term, to provide stability and start the Brexit talks, before making way.

Since Friday’s results, some senior Tories are referring to Ms May as an “interim leader” – and her Cabinet has failed to come out publicly to support her.

Ms Hill released only a short statement saying it had been “a pleasure to work with such an excellent Prime Minister”.

“I have no doubt at all that Theresa May will continue to serve and work hard as Prime Minister – and do it brilliantly,” Ms Hill added.

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The resignations came just hours after another former Downing Street aide revealed how she oversaw a “toxic” operation at No 10 and relied on Ms Hill’s “crazy ideas”.

Katie Perrior lifted the lid on a “dysfunctional” operation, which saw Cabinet ministers bombarded with rude text messages by the twin chiefs of staff.

Although the departures of Mr Timothy and Ms Hill will buy the Prime Minister breathing space, they are also a huge personal blow to her.

The pair worked with Ms May through her time as Home Secretary and were seen as crucial to her project to re-make the Tory party.

Meanwhile, it would require 15 per cent of Conservative MPs – a total of 48 – to write to Graham Brady, the chairman of the backbench 1922 Committee, to trigger a vote of no-confidence in her leadership.

In his statement, Mr Timothy revealed he resigned yesterday, although there was no announcement – and accepted seven years of spending cuts also helped explain the Tory setback.

“Britain is a divided country: many are tired of austerity, many remain frustrated or angry about Brexit, and many younger people feel they lack the opportunities enjoyed by their parents’ generation,” he said.

However, Mr Timothy insisted Ms May was “the one political leader who understands this division, and who has been working to address it.”

Intriguingly, he said the Conservatives had failed to detect Labour’s surge, because “we were not talking to the people who decided to vote for Labour”.

And he sounded a warning to wavering Tory MPs, saying: “The Brexit negotiations are due to begin, and if the United Kingdom is to get the right deal, there is no time to waste.

“I hope the Conservative Party in Parliament gets behind the Prime Minister, and allows her the political space to negotiate that deal.”</s>LONDON >> The two top aides to British Prime Minister Theresa May resigned Saturday, shouldering some of the blame for an election that proved a disaster for the Conservative Party, a headache for Britain’s exit from the European Union — and potentially a fatal blow to May’s premiership.

Joint chiefs of staff Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill formed part of May’s small inner circle and were blamed by many Conservatives for the party’s lackluster campaign and unpopular election platform, which alienated older voters with its plan to make them pay more for long-term care.

In a resignation statement on the Conservative Home website, Timothy conceded that the campaign had failed to communicate “Theresa’s positive plan for the future,” and missed signs of surging support for the opposition Labour Party.

Katie Perrior, who quit as May’s communications chief in April, said Timothy and Hill were “great street fighters but poor political leaders” and exercised too much power over the prime minister.

Some senior Tories had made the removal of Hill and Timothy a condition for continuing to support May, who has vowed to remain prime minister despite the Conservatives losing their overall majority in Parliament.

May’s party won 318 seats, eight short of the 326 they needed for an outright majority. The main opposition Labour Party took 262.

The resignations came as May worked to fill jobs in her minority government. May’s office has said that the most senior Cabinet members — including Treasury chief Philip Hammond, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Home Secretary Amber Rudd — will keep their jobs, but she is expected to shuffle the lower ranks of ministers.

May announced the party would try to work with Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, an alliance that is fraught with difficulties.

May’s Downing St. office said Conservative Chief Whip Gavin Williamson was in Belfast Saturday for talks with the DUP “on how best they can provide support to the government.”

The DUP, whose 10 seats would allow the government to get measures through Parliament, is a socially conservative pro-British Protestant group that opposes abortion and same-sex marriage and includes both environmentalists and climate-change deniers among its senior ranks.

The DUP was founded in the 1970s by the late firebrand preacher Ian Paisley, and in the 1980s was a key player in the “Save Ulster from Sodomy” campaign, which unsuccessfully fought against the legalization of gay sex.

Ruth Davidson, the Conservative leader in Scotland, said she had asked May for assurances that there would be no attack on gay rights after a deal with the DUP.

Northern Ireland is the only part of the U.K. in which same-sex marriage is illegal.

“It’s an issue very close to my heart and one that I wanted categoric assurances from the prime minister on, and I received (them),” said Davidson, who is engaged to be married to her female partner.

“I could not care less what people get up to in terms of their sexuality. That’s not a matter for me,” she said. “When it becomes a matter for me is when people try to redefine marriage.”

A deal between the government and the DUP could also unsettle the precarious balance between Northern Ireland’s British loyalist and Irish nationalist parties.

May’s authority over her party was shattered by the election result. She called the early election with her party comfortably ahead in the polls in the hope of increasing her majority and strengthening Britain’s hand in exit talks with the European Union.

Instead, the result has sown confusion and division in British ranks, just days before negotiations are due to start on June 19.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, riding a wave of acclaim for his party’s unexpectedly strong showing, called on May to resign.

She seems secure for the immediate future, because senior Conservatives don’t want to plunge the party into a damaging leadership contest. But Britain’s Saturday newspapers agreed she is just clinging on.

“May fights to remain PM,” said the front page of the Daily Telegraph, while the Times of London said: “May stares into the abyss.”</s>LONDON — British Prime Minister Theresa May struck a deal in principle with Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party on Saturday to prop up the Conservative government, stripped of its majority in a disastrous election.

The result has demolished May’s political authority, and she has also lost her two top aides, sacrificed in a bid to save their leader from being toppled by a furious Conservative Party.

The moves buy May a temporary reprieve. But the ballot-box humiliation has seriously — and possibly mortally — wounded her leadership just as Britain is about to begin complex exit talks with the European Union.

May’s office said Saturday that the Democratic Unionist Party, which has 10 seats in Parliament, had agreed to a “confidence and supply” arrangement with the government. That means the DUP will back the government on key votes, but it’s not a coalition government or a broader pact.

Downing St. said the Cabinet will discuss the agreement on Monday.

The announcement came after May lost Downing St. chiefs of staff Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, who resigned Saturday. They formed part of May’s small inner circle and were blamed by many Conservatives for the party’s lacklustre campaign and unpopular election platform, which alienated older voters with its plan to take away a winter fuel allowance and make them pay more for long-term care.

In a resignation statement on the Conservative Home website, Timothy conceded that the campaign had failed to communicate “Theresa’s positive plan for the future,” and missed signs of surging support for the opposition Labour Party.

Some senior Tories had made the removal of Hill and Timothy a condition for continuing to support May, who has vowed to remain prime minister. May’s party won 318 seats, 12 fewer than it had before May called a snap election, and eight short of the 326 needed for an outright majority. The main opposition Labour Party surpassed expectations by winning 262.

May announced later that Gavin Barwell — a former housing minister who lost his seat in Thursday’s election — would be her new chief of staff.

May said Barwell would help her “reflect on the election and why it did not deliver the result I hoped for.”

Conservative legislator Nigel Evans said the departure of the two aides was “a start,” but there needed to be changes to the way the government functioned in the wake of the campaign.

He said the Conservative election manifesto — which Hill and Timothy were key in drafting — was “a full assault on the core Tory voters, who are senior citizens.”

“It was a disaster,” he said. “Our manifesto was full of fear and the Labour Party’s manifesto was full of promises.”

Martin Selmayr, senior aide to European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, responded to the resignations by tweeting the word “bauernopfer” — German for the sacrifice of a pawn in chess.

May called the early election when her party was comfortably ahead in the polls, in the hope of increasing her majority and strengthening Britain’s hand in exit talks with the EU.

Instead, the result has sown confusion and division in British ranks, just days before negotiations are due to start on June 19.

May wanted to win explicit backing for her stance on Brexit, which involves leaving the EU’s single market and imposing restrictions on immigration while trying to negotiate free trade deal with the bloc. Some say her failure means the government must now take a more flexible approach to the divorce.

The Times of London said in an editorial that “the election appears to have been, among other things, a rejection of the vague but harshly worded prospectus for Brexit for which Mrs. May sought a mandate.”

It added that “the logic leading to Mrs. May’s departure from Downing St. is remorseless.”

The Downing St. resignations came as May worked to fill jobs in her minority government and replace ministers who lost their seats on Thursday. Her weakened position in the party rules out big changes, and May’s office has said that the most senior Cabinet members — including Treasury chief Philip Hammond, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Home Secretary Amber Rudd — will keep their jobs, but she is expected to shuffle the lower ranks of ministers.

The arrangement with the DUP will make governing easier, but it makes some Conservatives uneasy. The DUP is a socially conservative pro-British Protestant group that opposes abortion and same-sex marriage and once appointed an environment minister who believes human-driven climate change is a myth.

The DUP was founded in the 1970s by the late firebrand preacher Ian Paisley, and in the 1980s was a key player in the “Save Ulster from Sodomy” campaign, which unsuccessfully fought against the legalization of gay sex.

Ruth Davidson, the Conservative leader in Scotland, said she had asked May for assurances that there would be no attack on gay rights after a deal with the DUP.

Northern Ireland is the only part of the U.K. in which same-sex marriage is illegal.

“It’s an issue very close to my heart and one that I wanted categoric assurances from the prime minister on, and I received (them),” said Davidson, who is engaged to be married to her female partner.

“I could not care less what people get up to in terms of their sexuality. That’s not a matter for me,” she said. “When it becomes a matter for me is when people try to redefine marriage.”

A deal between the government and the DUP could also unsettle the precarious balance between Northern Ireland’s British loyalist and Irish nationalist parties.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, riding a wave of acclaim for his party’s unexpectedly strong showing, called on May to resign.

Newspaper headlines saw her as just clinging on. “May fights to remain PM,” said the front page of the Daily Telegraph, while the Times of London said: “May stares into the abyss.”

But she seems secure for the immediate future, because senior Conservatives don’t want to plunge the party into a damaging leadership contest.

“I don’t think throwing us into a leadership battle at this moment in time, when we are about to launch into these difficult negotiations, would be in the best interests of the country,” Evans said.</s>The fallout of the election disaster has led two top aides to British Prime Minister Theresa May to resign on Saturday.

Joint chiefs of staff Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, who formed part of May’s small inner circle, shouldered some for the blame for Thursday’s snap election that proved a disaster for the Conservative Party and a potential fatal blow to May’s premiership.

Timothy and Hill were blamed by many Conservatives for the party’s lackluster campaign and unpopular election platform, which alienated older voters with its plan to make them pay more for long-term care.

In a resignation statement on the Conservative Home website, Timothy conceded that the campaign had failed to communicate “Theresa’s positive plan for the future,” and missed signs of surging support for the opposition Labour Party.

Katie Perrior, who quit as May's communications chief in April, said Timothy and Hill were "great street fighters but poor political leaders" and exercised too much power over the prime minister.

Some senior Tories had made the removal of Hill and Timothy a condition for continuing to support May, who has vowed to remain prime minister despite the Conservatives losing their overall majority in Parliament.

The resignations came as May worked to fill jobs in her minority government. May's office has said that the most senior Cabinet members — including Treasury chief Philip Hammond, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Home Secretary Amber Rudd — will keep their jobs, but she is expected to shuffle the lower ranks of ministers.

May's party won 318 seats, eight short of the 326 they needed for an outright majority. The main opposition Labour Party took 262.

May announced the party would try to work with Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party, an alliance that is fraught with difficulties.

May's Downing St. office said Conservative Chief Whip Gavin Williamson was in Belfast Saturday for talks with the DUP "on how best they can provide support to the government."

The DUP, whose 10 seats would allow the government to get measures through Parliament, is a socially conservative pro-British Protestant group that opposes abortion and same-sex marriage and includes both environmentalists and climate-change deniers among its senior ranks.

The DUP was founded in the 1970s by the late firebrand preacher Ian Paisley, and in the 1980s was a key player in the "Save Ulster from Sodomy" campaign, which unsuccessfully fought against the legalization of gay sex.

Ruth Davidson, the Conservative leader in Scotland, said she had asked May for assurances that there would be no attack on gay rights after a deal with the DUP.

Northern Ireland is the only part of the U.K. in which same-sex marriage is illegal.

"It's an issue very close to my heart and one that I wanted categoric assurances from the prime minister on, and I received (them)," said Davidson, who is engaged to be married to her female partner.

"I could not care less what people get up to in terms of their sexuality. That's not a matter for me," she said. "When it becomes a matter for me is when people try to redefine marriage."

A deal between the government and the DUP could also unsettle the precarious balance between Northern Ireland's British loyalist and Irish nationalist parties.

May's authority over her party was shattered by the election result. She called the early election with her party comfortably ahead in the polls in the hope of increasing her majority and strengthening Britain's hand in exit talks with the European Union.

Instead, the result has sown confusion and division in British ranks, just days before negotiations are due to start on June 19.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, riding a wave of acclaim for his party's unexpectedly strong showing, called on May to resign.

She seems secure for the immediate future, because senior Conservatives don't want to plunge the party into a damaging leadership contest. But Britain's Saturday newspapers agreed she is just clinging on.

"May fights to remain PM," said the front page of the Daily Telegraph, while the Times of London said: "May stares into the abyss."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.</s>LONDON — British Prime Minister Theresa May struck a deal in principle with Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party on Saturday to prop up the Conservative government, stripped of its majority in a disastrous election.

The result has demolished May’s political authority, and she has also lost her two top aides, sacrificed in a bid to save their leader from being toppled by a furious Conservative Party.

The moves buy May a temporary reprieve. But the ballot-box humiliation has seriously — and possibly mortally — wounded her leadership just as Britain is about to begin complex exit talks with the European Union.

May’s office said Saturday that the Democratic Unionist Party, which has 10 seats in Parliament, had agreed to a “confidence and supply” arrangement with the government. That means the DUP will back the government on key votes, but it’s not a coalition government or a broader pact.

Downing St. said the Cabinet will discuss the agreement on Monday.

The announcement came after May lost Downing St. chiefs of staff Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, who resigned Saturday. They formed part of May’s small inner circle and were blamed by many Conservatives for the party’s lacklustre campaign and unpopular election platform, which alienated older voters with its plan to take away a winter fuel allowance and make them pay more for long-term care.

In a resignation statement on the Conservative Home website, Timothy conceded that the campaign had failed to communicate “Theresa’s positive plan for the future,” and missed signs of surging support for the opposition Labour Party.

Some senior Tories had made the removal of Hill and Timothy a condition for continuing to support May, who has vowed to remain prime minister. May’s party won 318 seats, 12 fewer than it had before May called a snap election, and eight short of the 326 needed for an outright majority. The main opposition Labour Party surpassed expectations by winning 262.

May announced later that Gavin Barwell — a former housing minister who lost his seat in Thursday’s election — would be her new chief of staff.

May said Barwell would help her “reflect on the election and why it did not deliver the result I hoped for.”

Conservative legislator Nigel Evans said the departure of the two aides was “a start,” but there needed to be changes to the way the government functioned in the wake of the campaign.

He said the Conservative election manifesto — which Hill and Timothy were key in drafting — was “a full assault on the core Tory voters, who are senior citizens.”

“It was a disaster,” he said. “Our manifesto was full of fear and the Labour Party’s manifesto was full of promises.”

Martin Selmayr, senior aide to European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, responded to the resignations by tweeting the word “bauernopfer” — German for the sacrifice of a pawn in chess.

May called the early election when her party was comfortably ahead in the polls, in the hope of increasing her majority and strengthening Britain’s hand in exit talks with the EU.

Instead, the result has sown confusion and division in British ranks, just days before negotiations are due to start on June 19.

May wanted to win explicit backing for her stance on Brexit, which involves leaving the EU’s single market and imposing restrictions on immigration while trying to negotiate free trade deal with the bloc. Some say her failure means the government must now take a more flexible approach to the divorce.

The Times of London said in an editorial that “the election appears to have been, among other things, a rejection of the vague but harshly worded prospectus for Brexit for which Mrs. May sought a mandate.”

It added that “the logic leading to Mrs. May’s departure from Downing St. is remorseless.”

The Downing St. resignations came as May worked to fill jobs in her minority government and replace ministers who lost their seats on Thursday. Her weakened position in the party rules out big changes, and May’s office has said that the most senior Cabinet members — including Treasury chief Philip Hammond, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Home Secretary Amber Rudd — will keep their jobs, but she is expected to shuffle the lower ranks of ministers.

The arrangement with the DUP will make governing easier, but it makes some Conservatives uneasy. The DUP is a socially conservative pro-British Protestant group that opposes abortion and same-sex marriage and once appointed an environment minister who believes human-driven climate change is a myth.

The DUP was founded in the 1970s by the late firebrand preacher Ian Paisley, and in the 1980s was a key player in the “Save Ulster from Sodomy” campaign, which unsuccessfully fought against the legalization of gay sex.

Ruth Davidson, the Conservative leader in Scotland, said she had asked May for assurances that there would be no attack on gay rights after a deal with the DUP.

Northern Ireland is the only part of the U.K. in which same-sex marriage is illegal.

“It’s an issue very close to my heart and one that I wanted categoric assurances from the prime minister on, and I received (them),” said Davidson, who is engaged to be married to her female partner.

“I could not care less what people get up to in terms of their sexuality. That’s not a matter for me,” she said. “When it becomes a matter for me is when people try to redefine marriage.”

A deal between the government and the DUP could also unsettle the precarious balance between Northern Ireland’s British loyalist and Irish nationalist parties.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, riding a wave of acclaim for his party’s unexpectedly strong showing, called on May to resign.

Newspaper headlines saw her as just clinging on. “May fights to remain PM,” said the front page of the Daily Telegraph, while the Times of London said: “May stares into the abyss.”

But she seems secure for the immediate future, because senior Conservatives don’t want to plunge the party into a damaging leadership contest.

“I don’t think throwing us into a leadership battle at this moment in time, when we are about to launch into these difficult negotiations, would be in the best interests of the country,” Evans said.</s>Prime Minister Theresa May appeared increasingly isolated after a botched election gamble that left her severely weakened and plunged Britain into a political crisis, days before the start of talks to leave the European Union.

May's two closest aides resigned on Saturday, paying the price for the failure to crush the opposition Labour Party under its radical left-wing leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Labour stunned even its own supporters by winning more parliamentary seats than expected and, although it lost the election, its performance was widely seen as a moral victory for Corbyn.

May called the vote three years early in the hope of scoring a sweeping win to strengthen her hand in the challenging Brexit talks, which are due to start in nine days' time.

That calculation backfired spectacularly on Thursday as voters stripped her Conservative Party of a parliamentary majority and forced her to turn to a small political party from Northern Ireland to prop up a minority government.

May's aides, Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, announced on Saturday that they had quit following sustained criticism of the campaign within the party.

Timothy and Hill had worked for May when she was interior minister, before she became prime minister in July last year in the chaotic days that followed the Brexit vote, and their influence had increasingly angered senior ministers.

Since the election, most of the members of her cabinet have kept quiet on the issue of May's future, adding to speculation that her days as prime minister might be numbered.

Britain's typically pro-Conservative press questioned whether she could remain in power with the clock ticking on the two-year EU divorce process.

The best-selling Sun newspaper said senior members of the party had vowed to get rid of May, but would wait at least six months because they feared a leadership contest could propel Labour into power under Corbyn, who supports renationalisation of key industries and higher taxes for business and top earners.

"She's staying, for now," one Conservative Party source told Reuters. Former Conservative cabinet minister Owen Paterson, asked about her future, said: "Let's see how it pans out."

A senior Conservative lawmaker was in Belfast on Saturday for talks with Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), whose 10 seats in the new parliament could give May just enough support to pass legislation.

A source close to the DUP said the party was seeking more funding for the province and concessions for former British soldiers in exchange for supporting May.

But the wooing of the DUP risks upsetting the political balance in Northern Ireland by aligning London more closely with the pro-British side in the divided province, where a power-sharing government with Irish nationalists is currently suspended.

The crisis also increases the chance that Britain will fall out of the EU in 2019 without a deal. May called the snap election to win a clear mandate for her plan to take Britain out of the EU's single market and customs union in order to cut immigration.

But her party is deeply divided over what it wants from Brexit, and the election result means British businesses still have no idea what trading rules they can expect in the coming years.

EU Budget Commissioner Guenther Oettinger said it may now be possible to discuss closer ties between Britain and the EU than May had initially planned, given her election flop.

Start your workday the right way with the news that matters most.

"For instance, if London were to stay in the customs union, then it would not have to renegotiate all trade agreements," he told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung newspaper.

The British pound tumbled on Friday against the U.S. dollar and the euro before stabilizing, down 1.7 and 1.4 percent against the two currencies respectively.

After confirming on Friday that her top five ministers, including finance minister Philip Hammond, would keep their jobs, May must name the rest of her team, who will take on one of the most demanding jobs in recent British history.

May has said Brexit talks will begin on June 19 as scheduled, the same day as the formal reopening of parliament.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she assumed Britain still wanted to leave the EU and talks should start quickly.

But Elmar Brok, a German conservative and the European Parliament's top Brexit expert, told the Ruhr Nachrichten newspaper that the talks would now be more complicated.

"May won't be able to make any compromises because she lacks a broad parliamentary majority," he said.

If she is to succeed in delivering the wishes of the 52 percent of voters who opted to take Britain out of the EU last year, she must find a way to bridge the differences within her party to pass legislation preparing for and enacting the departure.

Anand Menon, professor of politics at King's College London, said her lack of a parliamentary majority made it far more likely that Britain would leave the EU without a deal.

"Imagine she survives until autumn of next year," he said. "You will have a very fractious parliament. It is far from guaranteed to vote the deal through."

A failure to get legislation through parliament could eventually trigger another election.

Conservative Party insiders are also wondering how long May will last. "Theresa May is certainly the strongest leader that we have at the moment," lawmaker David Jones told the BBC.

The Times newspaper's front page declared "May stares into the abyss". It said Britain was "effectively leaderless" and the country "all but ungovernable". Its cartoon depicted May in a coffin with her feet sticking out and a speech bubble saying "Nothing has changed", a line she repeated several times as she reversed a key policy on social care during the campaign.

"The Conservatives have not yet broken the British system of democracy, but through their hubris and incompetence they have managed to make a mockery of it," it said in an editorial. "The task of restoring orderly government in order to make sense of Brexit is now a national emergency, and it falls to them."

The Telegraph newspaper said senior Conservatives including Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, interior minister Amber Rudd and Brexit minister David Davis were taking soundings over whether to seek to oust May.</s>LONDON — British Prime Minister Theresa May struck a deal in principle with Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party on Saturday to prop up the Conservative government, stripped of its majority in a disastrous election.

The result has demolished May’s political authority, and she has also lost her two top aides, sacrificed in a bid to save their leader from being toppled by a furious Conservative Party.

The moves buy May a temporary reprieve. But the ballot-box humiliation has seriously — and possibly mortally — wounded her leadership just as Britain is about to begin complex exit talks with the European Union.

May’s office said Saturday that the Democratic Unionist Party, which has 10 seats in Parliament, had agreed to a “confidence and supply” arrangement with the government. That means the DUP will back the government on key votes, but it’s not a coalition government or a broader pact.

Downing St. said the Cabinet will discuss the agreement on Monday.

The announcement came after May lost Downing St. chiefs of staff Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, who resigned Saturday. They formed part of May’s small inner circle and were blamed by many Conservatives for the party’s lacklustre campaign and unpopular election platform, which alienated older voters with its plan to take away a winter fuel allowance and make them pay more for long-term care.

In a resignation statement on the Conservative Home website, Timothy conceded that the campaign had failed to communicate “Theresa’s positive plan for the future,” and missed signs of surging support for the opposition Labour Party.

Some senior Tories had made the removal of Hill and Timothy a condition for continuing to support May, who has vowed to remain prime minister. May’s party won 318 seats, 12 fewer than it had before May called a snap election, and eight short of the 326 needed for an outright majority. The main opposition Labour Party surpassed expectations by winning 262.

May announced later that Gavin Barwell — a former housing minister who lost his seat in Thursday’s election — would be her new chief of staff.

May said Barwell would help her “reflect on the election and why it did not deliver the result I hoped for.”

Conservative legislator Nigel Evans said the departure of the two aides was “a start,” but there needed to be changes to the way the government functioned in the wake of the campaign.

He said the Conservative election manifesto — which Hill and Timothy were key in drafting — was “a full assault on the core Tory voters, who are senior citizens.”

“It was a disaster,” he said. “Our manifesto was full of fear and the Labour Party’s manifesto was full of promises.”

Martin Selmayr, senior aide to European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, responded to the resignations by tweeting the word “bauernopfer” — German for the sacrifice of a pawn in chess.

May called the early election when her party was comfortably ahead in the polls, in the hope of increasing her majority and strengthening Britain’s hand in exit talks with the EU.

Instead, the result has sown confusion and division in British ranks, just days before negotiations are due to start on June 19.

May wanted to win explicit backing for her stance on Brexit, which involves leaving the EU’s single market and imposing restrictions on immigration while trying to negotiate free trade deal with the bloc. Some say her failure means the government must now take a more flexible approach to the divorce.

The Times of London said in an editorial that “the election appears to have been, among other things, a rejection of the vague but harshly worded prospectus for Brexit for which Mrs. May sought a mandate.”

It added that “the logic leading to Mrs. May’s departure from Downing St. is remorseless.”

The Downing St. resignations came as May worked to fill jobs in her minority government and replace ministers who lost their seats on Thursday. Her weakened position in the party rules out big changes, and May’s office has said that the most senior Cabinet members — including Treasury chief Philip Hammond, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Home Secretary Amber Rudd — will keep their jobs, but she is expected to shuffle the lower ranks of ministers.

The arrangement with the DUP will make governing easier, but it makes some Conservatives uneasy. The DUP is a socially conservative pro-British Protestant group that opposes abortion and same-sex marriage and once appointed an environment minister who believes human-driven climate change is a myth.

The DUP was founded in the 1970s by the late firebrand preacher Ian Paisley, and in the 1980s was a key player in the “Save Ulster from Sodomy” campaign, which unsuccessfully fought against the legalization of gay sex.

Ruth Davidson, the Conservative leader in Scotland, said she had asked May for assurances that there would be no attack on gay rights after a deal with the DUP.

Northern Ireland is the only part of the U.K. in which same-sex marriage is illegal.

“It’s an issue very close to my heart and one that I wanted categoric assurances from the prime minister on, and I received (them),” said Davidson, who is engaged to be married to her female partner.

“I could not care less what people get up to in terms of their sexuality. That’s not a matter for me,” she said. “When it becomes a matter for me is when people try to redefine marriage.”

A deal between the government and the DUP could also unsettle the precarious balance between Northern Ireland’s British loyalist and Irish nationalist parties.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, riding a wave of acclaim for his party’s unexpectedly strong showing, called on May to resign.

Newspaper headlines saw her as just clinging on. “May fights to remain PM,” said the front page of the Daily Telegraph, while the Times of London said: “May stares into the abyss.”

But she seems secure for the immediate future, because senior Conservatives don’t want to plunge the party into a damaging leadership contest.

“I don’t think throwing us into a leadership battle at this moment in time, when we are about to launch into these difficult negotiations, would be in the best interests of the country,” Evans said.</s>LONDON — The two top aides to British Prime Minister Theresa May resigned Saturday, sacrificed in a bid to save their leader from being toppled by a furious Conservative Party after a disastrous election wiped out May's majority in Parliament.

The ballot-box humiliation has seriously — and possibly mortally — wounded May's leadership just as Britain is about to begin complex exit talks with the European Union.

Downing St. chiefs of staff Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, who departed Saturday, formed part of May's small inner circle and were blamed by many Conservatives for the party's lackluster campaign and unpopular election platform, which alienated older voters with its plan to take away a winter fuel allowance and make them pay more for long-term care.

In a resignation statement on the Conservative Home website, Timothy conceded that the campaign had failed to communicate "Theresa's positive plan for the future," and missed signs of surging support for the opposition Labour Party.

Some senior Tories had made the removal of Hill and Timothy a condition for continuing to support May, who has vowed to remain prime minister. May's party won 318 seats, 12 fewer than it had before May called a snap election, and eight short of the 326 needed for an outright majority. The main opposition Labour Party surpassed expectations by winning 262.

Conservative legislator Nigel Evans said the departure of the two aides was "a start," but there needed to be changes to the way the government functioned in the wake of the campaign.

He said the Conservative election manifesto — which Hill and Timothy were key in drafting — was "a full assault on the core Tory voters, who are senior citizens."

"It was a disaster," he said. "Our manifesto was full of fear and the Labour Party's manifesto was full of promises."

Martin Selmayr, senior aide to European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, responded to the resignations by tweeting the word "bauernopfer" — German for the sacrifice of a pawn in chess.

May called the early election when her party was comfortably ahead in the polls, in the hope of increasing her majority and strengthening Britain's hand in exit talks with the EU.

Instead, the result has sown confusion and division in British ranks, just days before negotiations are due to start on June 19.

May wanted to win explicit backing for her stance on Brexit, which involves leaving the EU's single market and imposing restrictions on immigration while trying to negotiate free trade deal with the bloc. Some say her failure means the government must now take a more flexible approach to the divorce.

The Times of London said in an editorial that "the election appears to have been, among other things, a rejection of the vague but harshly worded prospectus for Brexit for which Mrs. May sought a mandate."

It added that "the logic leading to Mrs. May's departure from Downing St. is remorseless."

The Downing St. resignations came as May worked to fill jobs in her minority government and replace ministers who lost their seats on Thursday. Her weakened position in the party rules out big changes, and May's office has said that the most senior Cabinet members — including Treasury chief Philip Hammond, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Home Secretary Amber Rudd — will keep their jobs, but she is expected to shuffle the lower ranks of ministers.

May announced the party would try strike a deal with Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party, an alliance that is fraught with difficulties. May's office said Conservative Chief Whip Gavin Williamson was in Belfast Saturday for talks with the DUP "on how best they can provide support to the government."

The DUP, whose 10 seats would allow the government to get measures through Parliament, is a socially conservative pro-British Protestant group that opposes abortion and same-sex marriage and once appointed an environment minister who believes human-driven climate change is a myth.

The DUP was founded in the 1970s by the late firebrand preacher Ian Paisley, and in the 1980s was a key player in the "Save Ulster from Sodomy" campaign, which unsuccessfully fought against the legalization of gay sex.

Ruth Davidson, the Conservative leader in Scotland, said she had asked May for assurances that there would be no attack on gay rights after a deal with the DUP.

Northern Ireland is the only part of the U.K. in which same-sex marriage is illegal.

"It's an issue very close to my heart and one that I wanted categoric assurances from the prime minister on, and I received (them)," said Davidson, who is engaged to be married to her female partner.

"I could not care less what people get up to in terms of their sexuality. That's not a matter for me," she said. "When it becomes a matter for me is when people try to redefine marriage."

A deal between the government and the DUP could also unsettle the precarious balance between Northern Ireland's British loyalist and Irish nationalist parties.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, riding a wave of acclaim for his party's unexpectedly strong showing, called on May to resign.

Newspaper headlines saw her as just clinging on. "May fights to remain PM," said the front page of the Daily Telegraph, while the Times of London said: "May stares into the abyss."

But she seems secure for the immediate future, because senior Conservatives don't want to plunge the party into a damaging leadership contest.

"I don't think throwing us into a leadership battle at this moment in time, when we are about to launch into these difficult negotiations, would be in the best interests of the country," Evans said.</s>Here we are, the morning after the morning after, with Theresa May still in No 10, still prime minister and still without a majority.

Like the snap election itself, the Snap briefing is, after today, over. Console yourself by signing up here for the Guardian morning briefing instead; you can read the latest edition here. Thanks to all who read the Snap, and to those who sought me out in the comments or on Twitter in the last seven weeks.

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It turns out that June could still be the end of May – but perhaps not quite yet. The prime minister zipped off to see the Queen on Friday, without quite having her own queenmakers in place. While Arlene Foster, leader of the Democratic Unionist party, agreed that Northern Ireland’s biggest group of MPs would be holding talks with the Tories, no firm deal appears to have been struck, and May herself mentioned her “friends and allies” only fleetingly in her “this is fine” Downing Street address.

Her new government would “provide certainty”, the PM insisted, trying gamely to give the impression that losing her majority had been the plan all along and she absolutely meant to kick herself in the head. Somehow she forgot to mention the vanished majority at all, or the colleagues who had found themselves out of a job (an addendum issued later, a sad-faced oops).

Wiped, too, is the “Theresa May’s team” branding. Back in comes the official but rarely deployed “Conservative and Unionist party”. That title at least gives some Venn diagram overlap with the DUP, but questions persist over where else they might find accommodation. Jonathan Powell, chief of staff to Tony Blair at the time of the Good Friday agreement, was not the only person to question what this might mean for the Westminster government’s duty to be neutral in Northern Ireland, especially against the backdrop of a mothballed Stormont.

Given the fascination during the campaign with Lib Dem leader Tim Farron’s views on gay sex and abortion, it’s no surprise that the same scrutiny is now turning to the 10 DUP MPs. The answers (along with a tinge of climate change denial) might be no surprise either, but are causing concern among some in a Tory party already rather rattled by their leader’s unnecessary electoral self-own.

Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson – a rare cheery Tory yesterday, who saw the number of MPs in Scotland spiral from one to 13 – tweeted that she was “a Protestant Unionist about to marry an Irish Catholic”, partner Jen Wilson. She said she had received “categoric assurance” from May that gay rights would not be harmed by a deal with the DUP:

Davidson also labelled as “B****cks” – her asterisks, not mine, this is the Guardian – a claim by the Telegraph that Scotland’s Tories were set to “go their own way” in the wake of May’s hubristic result.

Also going nowhere, for now, are five key cabinet ministers. Shuffling the deck is hard when your hand is broken. Chancellor Philip Hammond, home secretary Amber Rudd, foreign secretary Boris Johnson, Brexit secretary David Davis and defence secretary Michael Fallon all stay put. But May’s closest aides, Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, described by one anonymous cabinet minister as “monsters who propped her up and sunk our party”, might not get one of her categoric assurances.

The thornier question is whether the PM’s own life cycle is longer than a mayfly. An optimistic reference in her speech to her ambition to “over the next five years build a country in which no one and no community is left behind” could prove to contain a glaring exception. With the rightwing press darting from cheering her efforts to “crush the saboteurs” by calling the snap election, to “she’s had her chips” in the hours afterwards, allies might be harder to find than an ordinary person at a Theresa May campaign rally.

Still, someone has to turn up for those Brexit negotiations 10 days from now: the talks May said she was concentrating on so much she couldn’t spare the time for TV debates. The talks she said would be fronted by Jeremy Corbyn if she lost six seats (she lost 13).

Who’d make predictions these days, but chances are it won’t be Corbyn at those Brexit chats. Nonetheless, the Labour leader, who lost the election but emerges as the closest thing to a winner, insisted he was “ready to serve”. A euphoric day for Labour (tempered by the occasional reality check that they were not the government) was dealt an extra dollop of homemade jam on Friday night when it took Kensington – the Kensington, one of London’s richest, if not evenly spread, constituencies – from the Tories by an elfin 20 votes.

The stream of Labour MPs confessing to their own faulty polling predictions provided extra balm to Camp Corbyn. Here’s Owen Smith, last year’s leadership challenger:

So where did that Labour surge come from? Memes, obviously, and a canny social media strategy. But beyond that, the answers were complex and indicative of a shrugging of the political landscape. There was the youth and student contribution. There was the fact that the disintegration of the Ukip vote did not land plumly in the laps of the Tories but sought out Labour too. There was the Labour manifesto, and the malfunctioning Conservative version. There was Wales. There was even Scotland.

Continuing the theme of the day, the SNP won the most seats in Scotland and simultaneously received a thrashing. In 2015, they scooped all but three of the 59 constituencies; the others were doled out neatly one each to Labour, the Conservatives and the Lib Dems. Two years later, the SNP took home 35 seats, saying farewell to its biggest names on the way, and witnessed Labour leap up to seven, the Lib Dems to four, and the Tories to an eye-rubbing 13. It wasn’t all about talk of another independence referendum, insisted Nicola Sturgeon, while conceding it “undoubtedly” was a factor. Her deputy John Swinney thought the prospect of indyref2 was a “significant motivator”, saying the SNP would “have to be attentive to that”.

The Lib Dems, too, found that the promise of another vote wasn’t a huge vote-winner. Twelve seats is, mathematically, a chunky boost to the eight they won in 2015 (there was a brief dalliance with a ninth, but with Richmond Park returning to Zac Goldsmith after just six months in Sarah Olney’s hands, we’ll skim over that). Twelve seats is not, however, the party of the 48%. Then again, nor was May’s result, argued Farron, a mandate for hard Brexit.

Oh, and a Ukip leader resigned. Plus ça change, as Paul Nuttall probably wouldn’t like me to say.
• Caroline Lucas is sole glimmer of light on tough night for Greens.
• Lesley Riddoch: Have we reached peak SNP? Don’t count on it.
• Olympic officials would resist DUP demand for Team GB to be Team UK.
• Catch up with the Guardian’s Election Daily podcast.



The BBC’s political editor Laura Kuenssberg assesses the mood inside the Tory party:

In the New Statesman, Patrick Maguire says the Tory-DUP alliance poses a challenge to the future of Northern Ireland’s devolved legislature:
• A record number of women were elected to the House of Commons: 208. (That’s only 32%, though, so still plenty of patriarchy left to ruffle.)
• Over half of MPs in the incoming parliament went to state comprehensives, which is somehow, staggeringly, the first time that has happened. The Sutton Trust finds 51% went to comprehensives and 29% were privately educated. And 3% of all MPs went to a single school, which was … drumroll … Eton.
• Preet Gill, winning Birmingham Edgbaston, became the first Sikh female MP; Tanmanjeet Dhesi, in Slough, is the first turban-wearing Sikh MP.
• There are now 52 minority ethnic MPs, according to thinktank British Future, which called it the “most diverse UK parliament ever”.
• And there is also a record number of LGBTQ MPs: at least 45.

Comments are open on the politics live blog.</s>LONDON – British Prime Minister Theresa May struck a deal in principle with Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party on Saturday to prop up the Conservative government, stripped of its majority in a disastrous election.

The result has demolished May’s political authority, and she has also lost her two top aides, sacrificed in a bid to save their leader from being toppled by a furious Conservative Party.

The moves buy May a temporary reprieve. But the ballot-box humiliation has seriously – and possibly mortally – wounded her leadership just as Britain is about to begin complex exit talks with the European Union.

May’s office said Saturday that the Democratic Unionist Party, which has 10 seats in Parliament, had agreed to a “confidence and supply” arrangement with the government. That means the DUP will back the government on key votes, but it’s not a coalition government or a broader pact.

Downing St. said the Cabinet will discuss the agreement on Monday.

The announcement came after May lost Downing St. chiefs of staff Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, who resigned Saturday. They formed part of May’s small inner circle and were blamed by many Conservatives for the party’s lackluster campaign and unpopular election platform, which alienated older voters with its plan to take away a winter fuel allowance and make them pay more for long-term care.

In a resignation statement on the Conservative Home website, Timothy conceded that the campaign had failed to communicate “Theresa’s positive plan for the future,” and missed signs of surging support for the opposition Labour Party.

Some senior Tories had made the removal of Hill and Timothy a condition for continuing to support May, who has vowed to remain prime minister. May’s party won 318 seats, 12 fewer than it had before May called a snap election, and eight short of the 326 needed for an outright majority. The main opposition Labour Party surpassed expectations by winning 262.

May announced later that Gavin Barwell – a former housing minister who lost his seat in Thursday’s election – would be her new chief of staff.

May said Barwell would help her “reflect on the election and why it did not deliver the result I hoped for.”

Conservative legislator Nigel Evans said the departure of the two aides was “a start,” but there needed to be changes to the way the government functioned in the wake of the campaign.

He said the Conservative election manifesto – which Hill and Timothy were key in drafting – was “a full assault on the core Tory voters, who are senior citizens.”

“It was a disaster,” he said. “Our manifesto was full of fear and the Labour Party’s manifesto was full of promises.”

Martin Selmayr, senior aide to European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, responded to the resignations by tweeting the word “bauernopfer” – German for the sacrifice of a pawn in chess.

May called the early election when her party was comfortably ahead in the polls, in the hope of increasing her majority and strengthening Britain’s hand in exit talks with the EU.

Instead, the result has sown confusion and division in British ranks, just days before negotiations are due to start on June 19.

May wanted to win explicit backing for her stance on Brexit, which involves leaving the EU’s single market and imposing restrictions on immigration while trying to negotiate free trade deal with the bloc. Some say her failure means the government must now take a more flexible approach to the divorce.

The Times of London said in an editorial that “the election appears to have been, among other things, a rejection of the vague but harshly worded prospectus for Brexit for which Mrs. May sought a mandate_”

It added that “the logic leading to Mrs. May’s departure from Downing St. is remorseless.”

The Downing St. resignations came as May worked to fill jobs in her minority government and replace ministers who lost their seats on Thursday. Her weakened position in the party rules out big changes, and May’s office has said that the most senior Cabinet members – including Treasury chief Philip Hammond, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Home Secretary Amber Rudd – will keep their jobs, but she is expected to shuffle the lower ranks of ministers.

The arrangement with the DUP will make governing easier, but it makes some Conservatives uneasy. The DUP is a socially conservative pro-British Protestant group that opposes abortion and same-sex marriage and once appointed an environment minister who believes human-driven climate change is a myth.

The DUP was founded in the 1970s by the late firebrand preacher Ian Paisley, and in the 1980s was a key player in the “Save Ulster from Sodomy” campaign, which unsuccessfully fought against the legalization of gay sex.

Ruth Davidson, the Conservative leader in Scotland, said she had asked May for assurances that there would be no attack on gay rights after a deal with the DUP.

Northern Ireland is the only part of the U.K. in which same-sex marriage is illegal.

“It’s an issue very close to my heart and one that I wanted categoric assurances from the prime minister on, and I received (them),” said Davidson, who is engaged to be married to her female partner.

“I could not care less what people get up to in terms of their sexuality. That’s not a matter for me,” she said. “When it becomes a matter for me is when people try to redefine marriage.”

A deal between the government and the DUP could also unsettle the precarious balance between Northern Ireland’s British loyalist and Irish nationalist parties.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, riding a wave of acclaim for his party’s unexpectedly strong showing, called on May to resign.

Newspaper headlines saw her as just clinging on. “May fights to remain PM,” said the front page of the Daily Telegraph, while the Times of London said: “May stares into the abyss.”

But she seems secure for the immediate future, because senior Conservatives don’t want to plunge the party into a damaging leadership contest.

“I don’t think throwing us into a leadership battle at this moment in time, when we are about to launch into these difficult negotiations, would be in the best interests of the country,” Evans said.
Prime Minister Theresa May's closest advisers, Fiona Hill and Nick Timothy, resign as her Chiefs of Staff amid criticism over their role in the Conservative Party's election campaign.