After months of arguing that an early parliamentary election would distract the country from the necessity of focusing on Brexit negotiations, May stunned Britons in mid-April 2017 by calling for a snap election for June, saying that its results would provide stability and certainty for the United Kingdom during its crucial transition out of the EU. Some observers interpreted the move as May’s attempt to bolster her party’s relatively slim 17-seat majority in the House of Commons at a time when opinion polling indicated that big electoral gains were likely for the Conservatives in the face of increasing intransigence from the opposition in Parliament. In order to hold an election ahead of the 2020 date mandated by the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, May needed to win two-thirds majority approval in the House of Commons. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn criticized May for reversing her stance on the issue but welcomed a return to the polls, and, by a vote of 522 to 13 (with members of the Scottish National Party abstaining), members of Parliament approved a snap election to be held on June 8, with Parliament to be dissolved on May 2 for the start of the election campaign.

With the Conservatives leading Labour by more than 20 percent in some public opinion polls in mid-April, May sought to focus her campaign on winning support for so-called hard Brexit, which would remove the U.K. not only from the EU but also from the organization’s single economic market, an approach unpopular with much of the parliamentary opposition. She set up the election as a personal contest between herself and Corbyn, repeatedly contrasting her “strong and stable” leadership with the purported unreliability of Corbyn, who was characterized as an out-of-touch leftist loony. Events, however, conspired to shift the focus of the election, and Corbyn proved himself to be a much more adept campaigner than May.

The election campaign, Manchester arena bombing, and London Bridge attack

Twice the election was interrupted (and campaigning temporarily suspended) by terrorist attacks. On May 22 an attacker detonated a bomb at a pop music concert in Manchester, killing 22 and injuring dozens of others. Then, on June 3, only days before the election, three attackers with a vehicle mowed down pedestrians on London Bridge and then continued their attack with knives in Borough Market, eventually taking eight lives before being killed by police. In the wake of the attacks, Corbyn criticized the reductions in police personnel that had been carried out by May during her tenure as home secretary.

May seemed uncomfortable campaigning. Whereas her performances on the campaign trail were often stilted and uncertain, Corbyn surprised pundits with his energized presence and the enthusiasm that he generated on the hustings, especially from young people. Both May and Corbyn initially had indicated that they would not participate in the televised debate among all the party leaders, but, when Corbyn changed his mind, the absence of May (who was represented by Home Secretary Amber Rudd) was noticeable. Arguably, May’s biggest stumble was a proposal in her campaign manifesto that called for the at-home social care of the elderly to be paid for by the sale of their homes by the government after their deaths. Although the plan would have allowed for the deceased’s relatives to keep £100,000, the hue and cry that came in response to this measure, dubbed the “dementia tax,” forced May to quickly backtrack and propose that a cap be imposed on how much money could be taken by the government from home sales. Rather than appearing strong and stable, May looked to some observers to be “weak and wobbly.”