British Prime Minister Theresa May under fire as top aides resign

British Prime Minister Theresa May was forced to relinquish her two closest aides on Saturday as she struggled to reassert her authority following a crushing electoral setback.

The Conservative leader has been warned her days are numbered after calling Thursday’s vote three years early, only to lose her majority in parliament.

Senior party figures have cautioned against any immediate leadership challenge, saying it would only cause further disruption as Britain prepares to start Brexit negotiations as early as June 19                

But reports suggest they demanded the departure of May’s joint chiefs of staff, Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, as the price for allowing the 60-year-old vicar’s daughter to stay in office.

May announced Friday she would seek to form a minority government with the help of a small Northern Irish party, the far-right Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).

She put on a brave face, refusing to show any contrition for the election gamble that spectacularly backfired, but observers say she has been deeply wounded.

“From hubris to humiliation,” said the left-leaning Guardian. “May stares into the abyss,” wrote The Times, while Conservative-supporting The Sun tabloid said succinctly: “She’s had her chips.”


May was interior minister for six years before taking over from David Cameron in the political chaos that following last June’s Brexit referendum.

She inherited a 17-seat majority in the Commons, but called the snap vote to take advantage of opinion polls putting her on course for a landslide.

May sought to frame the campaign around her personal leadership heading into Brexit, but this was undermined by public performances derided as robotic.

Two terror attacks put scrutiny on her record of cutting police numbers, playing into the hands of the opposition Labour party and its promise to end austerity.

Conservative lawmaker Anna Soubry said May should “consider her position”, while another, Heidi Allen, said she may not last six months.

However, former Conservative party leaders warned against any immediate change, with Iain Duncan Smith saying leadership contest would be a “catastrophe”.

“Voters do not want further months of uncertainty and upheaval,” William Hague wrote in the Daily Telegraph, while adding that “very serious lessons” would be learned.