Election 2017: Hung parliament? Tory win? Corbyn as PM? The six possible scenarios
Our Chief Political Commentator sets out the range of possible outcomes to expect after the polls close at 10pm
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Your support makes all the difference.Here are six possible scenarios that could emerge overnight between Thursday and Friday:
| Conservative seats | Majority | Result |
|
| Lose 19+ | Hung parliament | Labour government | Jeremy Corbyn’s huge triumph, but he would need SNP and other votes to be PM, and a few Labour MPs would refuse to support him |
| Lose 8-18 | Hung parliament | Conservative minority government | Disaster for Theresa May: she would need DUP/UUP votes (8-11) to stay on, and the Tories might soon replace her with Boris Johnson, David Davis or Amber Rudd |
| Lose 1-8 | Conservative working majority of 1-15 | Conservative reduced majority | Humiliation for May, but she will say “Brexit is Brexit; a win is a win”, and she will at least have her own mandate |
| Gain 0-8 | Conservative absolute majority of 12-28 | What was the point of that? | Embarrassment for May, but she will say that she has strengthened her government and has a stronger mandate for Brexit talks |
| Gain 9-33 | Conservative majority 30-78 | Comfortable win | Vindication for May: despite a manifesto forcing voters to face tough choices about old age, she is secure for a parliament |
| Gain 34+ | Conservative majority 80+ | Landslide | Triumph for May: the “terrible campaign” story will be rewritten as a brilliant reading of the essence of the British people |
What is a majority?
The absolute majority matters in reporting the election tomorrow, because we are comparing with previous elections. In 2015 the Conservatives’ absolute majority was 12, the difference between the number of Conservative seats, 331, and all other parties, 319, in a House of Commons of 650.
The working majority matters to a Government trying to get its laws through Parliament: it excludes Sinn Fein MPs, who do not take their seats, and any vacancies. It was 17 when Parliament was dissolved. So Theresa May could lose eight seats and still have a working majority of one, if Sinn Fein wins five seats, one more than last time (the Conservatives would have 323 seats to 322 for all other parties).
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