May's mess: How a miserable night unfolded for the British Prime Minister

Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May waits for the result of the vote in her constituency at the count centre for the general election in Maidenhead, June 9, 2017. REUTERS/Toby Melville - RTX39QYF

The United Kingdom woke up on Friday to a hung Parliament, with Prime Minister Theresa May's gamble of holding an early election spectacularly backfiring. With the under-fire May set to make a statement later this afternoon on her future, here's a primer to bring you up to speed:

Exit polls

After voting ended at 10pm local time, an exit poll came out predicting that the ruling Conservatives would form the single largest party, but would fall short of a majority. Such polls have turned out to be unreliable in recent major elections, but with counting now over in 642 out of 650 seats, this one proved to be spot-on.

At the time of writing, the Tories had 314 seats, 11 short of the halfway mark, while Jeremy Corbyn's Labour had 261.

Labour led for at least two-thirds of the way during counting, before the Conservatives surged ahead to meet exit poll predictions.

By the break of dawn in Britain, it became clear that a hung Parliament was the only outcome.

Mess for May

While the Conservatives have won the most seats, the result is no cause for celebration. May could still continue as Prime Minister, but significant damage has been done. She called this election three years early thinking that she could strengthen her mandate before Brexit talks. Instead, her majority has reduced and the "stability" he talked about throughout the campaign has failed to materialise.

Her party colleagues did not hide their disappointment. Conservative MP Nigel Evans said,"We didn't shoot ourselves in the foot, we shot ourselves in the head."

Former Small Business Minister Anna Soubry did not hold back either. “I’m afraid we ran a pretty dreadful campaign and that’s me being generous,” she said, “She’s (May) a very talented woman and she doesn’t shy from difficult decisions but she has to consider her position.”

Labour leader Corbyn suggested that May had lost her authority and should resign. Media reports suggest she will continue.

Big names bite the dust

Major parts of UK turned red in a flash as there were some high-profile defeats. Former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Scottish National Party's Deputy Leader Angus Robertson suffered shock defeats.

Alex Salmond, former leader of the SNP, also lost his seat. In a major blow to the Tories, at least nine ministers had to bite the dust.

The Conservatives' performance in Scotland helped keep them afloat, but they still need to cobble a majority to form a government. The Democratic Unionist Party in Northern Ireland may come to the rescue with their 10 seats, but the party could seek their pound of flesh in the form of a compromise on Brexit.

May could also run a minority government, but that would make life difficult in terms of getting policies approved.

For Labour, it's been an admirable show given the party wasn't expected to compete. But it won't have enough seats to form the government even with the help of the SNP and Liberal Democrats.

Markets Reaction:

Global markets have been mostly indifferent as they are still figuring out the implications of this result. S&P 500 futures is marginally up, Nikkei is positive, Hang Seng, Sensex marginally down. However, UK financial market barometers are showing signs of worry- FTSE futures and GBP/USD are both down about -0.5% each.