The Prime Minister may have erred in turning the election into a presidential-style contest

Uder the looming shadow of exit negotiations with the European Union, British Prime Minister Theresa May had good reason to call a snap general election on June 8. By putting her faith in the hands of the voters, she sought a strong, unequivocal mandate to take the fight to Brussels. In April, opinion polls suggested that she might even match the majorities of former Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair, of 144 in 1983 and 179 in 1997, respectively, in the 650-seat House of Commons. Yet that dream appears to be crumbling as the race has gradually tightened, with multiple terror incidents, including theManchester bombing and the London Bridge attack, further muddying her prospects. The initial 20-plus points lead held by the Tories when the election was announced in April has withered into a mere five points, according to an Ipsos MORI poll. A YouGov poll, an outlier, projected the Tories losing 20 seats — Ms. May’s outgoing government enjoyed a 17-seat working majority. Other models, however, show her winning a sizeable majority, in some cases by as much as 142 seats. These variations in poll projections must, however, be considered alongside the recent setbacks endured by the U.K. polling industry, which in some measure failed to read the tea leaves correctly for the 2015 general election and the 2016 Brexit referendum.

Nonetheless, the state of national politics may offer the Conservative leadership fewer reasons to feel sanguine. Prime Minister May miscalculated in framing the race as a presidential-style contest against Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. This not only opened the window of opportunity to him to stage a comeback, but also brought a host of domestic policy issues on to the table for voters to dissect and criticise. Indeed, according to some polls Mr. Corbyn is only a few points shy of Ms. May’s net favourability rating, and has gained even more traction by critiquing her government’s cut of 20,000 police officers at a time when the U.K. has been vulnerable to the sort of terror attacks witnessed in recent weeks. Similarly, Ms. May’s campaign has taken a beating from the awkward backtrack on what has been dubbed the “dementia tax”, a proposal whereby care for an elderly person would be paid for by the sale of his or her house after death, depriving the heirs. Other austerity policies proposed by Conservatives, including a controversial plan to end universal free school lunches for children, have sent the jitters among some sections of voters. The lesson from this pre-election turbulence in support for the Tories is that even if they succeed in retaining or increasing their parliamentary majority, it would be unwise to take their opposition for granted, or be overly optimistic in assuming that the European Union would soften its negotiating stance owing to the internal politics of the U.K.

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