And the winner of the U.K's big election is — no one.
Technically, the Conservatives emerged with the largest shareof seats in Parliament. But they no longer have enough seats to make up a solid majority.
Since no party can form a majority government on its own, someone's going to have to cut a deal.
The Conservatives can try to form a coalition with another party, like they did with the Liberal Democrats in 2010. That means the two parties share power and work together on a shared agenda.
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Labour can also try to weld together a coalition, but they'll have to cooperate with several parties to make up for their substantial seat deficit.
It's possible one party could try to govern from the minority and win support vote by vote. But that'd make for a pretty weak government.
And a weak government is not what the U.K. needs right now. It's in the middle of negotiating its way out of the European Union, and the terms of the deal could have wide-ranging impacts on the country.
