HELLO WORLD. By now you must have heard that two months ago, our prime minister called for a general election — and HERE WE ARE! Britain is officially going to the polls today, June 8 in this year of our Lord, 2017.
So wait: Why is this happening? How is this even possible? Why can't I feel my face? Well, it all starts with a fun little thing that happened last year called the EU referendum.
The Brexit vote set off a bit of a chain reaction, politically speaking. Our prime minister at the time of the EU referendum was David Cameron, a man known throughout the land for his beautiful moon face and sad, empty eyes.
When Britain voted to leave, Cameron pretty much had to resign.
If you're ever having a bad day at work remember you're not David Cameron and you didn't unintentionally lead the UK out of the EU.
RIP David Cameron and your beautiful, shining moon face.
Since in a parliamentary system people technically vote for a party rather than a person, Cameron's resignation set off a competition among Conservative party politicians to be the new party leader, and therefore the next prime minister.
Theresa May's leadership campaign so far
The thing is, everyone who threw their hats in the ring ended up tripping over their own dicks in pretty spectacular fashion, until only one candidate was left standing.
Suddenly this woman, Theresa May, was prime minister – only 90 minutes after officially launching her campaign, and without anyone, in the public or in the party, having voted for her.
So why would Theresa May, seen here with an old flame, decide to call an election when she is ALREADY prime minister?
The thing is, the process of leaving the EU, which officially kicked off at the end of March with the triggering of Article 50, is going to take two long, boring years at least.
May had previously said she wouldn't call an election before the scheduled 2020 vote, but explained her U-turn by saying "division in Westminster will risk our ability to make a success of Brexit".
It MAY be the case (get it??) that winning an election would strengthen her hand while negotiating with the EU, which is ~playing hardball~ at the moment.
Also, by having an election NOW, she doesn't really have to have another one until AFTER all the EU dealings are done and dusted.
On balance I'm thinking chaos with Ed Miliband might have been the simpler option
This way she can avoid any potential political fallout from a transitional deal that, say, kept free movement for EU nationals, or anything else people who voted to leave were keen to get rid of.
MEANWHILE, right now the leader of the Labour party and Theresa May's main opponent is this man, Jeremy Corbyn, seen here posing in a train toilet for reasons that cannot be explained.
"We look forward to showing how Labour will stand up for the people of Britain."
Despite Corbyn's natural charms, the Labour party under his leadership wasn't doing very well in the polls – until the campaign began.
Labour had been 20 points behind in the opinion polls. As we've got closer and closer to election night, the gap in the polls has shrunk dramatically – although the Conservatives are still ahead.
Theresa May's government currently has a working majority in parliament of just 17 seats, which is not very many in a parliament with 650 seats total. A bigger post-election majority would be handy if the shit hits the fan in Brexit negotiations.
Unlike past prime ministers, though, May couldn't just call an election unilaterally. Thanks to a new law, two-thirds of MPs had to vote in favour of having an election for it to happen.
So with a strong lead in the polls and an opponent trapped in a train loo, why wouldn't you call an election, really?
Anyway, that's what we're up to over here!
