Abstract

GOES, Eunice. General Election in the United Kingdom: Brexit and Austerity Lead to Electoral Surprise. Relações Internacionais [online]. 2017, n.56, pp.77-92. ISSN 1645-9199.  https://doi.org/10.23906/ri2017.56a05.

When the British Prime Minister Theresa May called an early election for the 8th of June of 2017 she was expecting her a party to win a landslide majority. But voters had other ideas. As a result, the Conservative Party its majority in the House of Commons and was forced to celebrate a confidence and supply agreement with the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party. Labour, on the other hand had much better results than expected. This article seeks to explain what is behind these astonishing results. It will argue that to a certain extent the 2017 general election was a ‘Brexit election', however, other factors, namely the impact of austerity policies influenced voting behaviour.

Keywords : Brexit; elections; austerity; conservatives; Labour.

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