Hello and welcome. My name is Sophia Bash and you're listening to the CER podcast. Hello, I am at the

CER Brussels office today with Charles Grant and Simon Tilford. Charles, of course, is the director

here at the Centre for European Reform, and Simon is our deputy

director. And they are here for a quick election primer on the day before the UK's general

election tomorrow. We'll talk about how we got here, where the main parties stand, which issues

were missing in the campaigns, perhaps, and what this election means for Europe. First, Simon, maybe, how did we get here?

When Theresa May, Britain's prime minister called a snap general election on April 18th, what was her

reasoning?

By calling her general election, she hoped to increase the size of her majority, significantly.

A majority is currently quite slim.

And her reasoning, I think, was that that would give her the strength or the leverage to face

down some of the more ideological Eurosceptics in the Conservative Party, and it would free her up

to negotiate a somewhat softer Brexit than the one that many on the right wing of her party would

like to see. And I think there was real logic in that. I mean, at that point, it looked very

clear that she would indeed win a much bigger majority. The conservatives were a long, long way ahead

in the polls, and it looked highly unlikely that the Labour Party and

the Jeremy Corman would stage much of a comeback during the campaign. So I think a reasoning

would sound. Call on election now before the negative impacts of Brexit, native impacts of Brexit

have come through and before the negotiations with the EU have shown how weak Britain's position

is, come out of the election with a big majority and with the scope to face down a more militant, you're a skeptics.

I think the logic was clear.

What we're seeing, however, is that it might be rather tighter than she thought.

...