Padstow, UK: Britons head to the polls on Thursday with one thing certain for sure. There will be no clear winner after the May 7 vote and it could be weeks before the United Kingdom has a coalition government formed by either a partnership of David Cameron’s Conservatives with any combination of the Liberal Democrats, United Kingdom Independence Party and Northern Irish Democratic Unionists on one side, or Labour’s Ed Miliband with the Liberal Democrats or a temporary arrangement with a bloc of 55 Scottish Nationalists.
“No one is going to win,” Lib-Dem leader Nick Clegg admitted yesterday. “I know David Cameron and Ed Miliband go about robotically saying they going to win. They’re not and they know it.”
Both the Conservatives and Labour have set red lines for any possible coalition deal. Cameron wants a 2017 in-or-out referendum on Britain’s future in the European Union — which would be rejected by Liberal Democrats — but wanted by the United Kingdom Independence Party.
Miliband has excluded any deal with the Scottish Nationalists but may be forced to rethink that stance — or face being toppled by party members for failing to secure a majority. The Scottish Nationalists would want a guarantee of a new referendum on independence as a price for supporting a Labour government — with or without Miliband.
What is for sure is that Britain faces weeks of uncertainty until any coalition deal is done — and even then, the long-term effects will dramatically shape the course of a united country in or out of the European Union.
