May's big gamble on Brexit general election

BRITISH Prime Minister Theresa May has announced that she is engineering a snap general election for June 8 with Brexit being the primary motivation. The unexpected announcement, which signals the third UK-wide vote in two years, has taken the country by surprise following repeated denials from Downing Street that Mrs May would call an early national ballot before the next scheduled one in May 2020.

The chief reason Mrs May asserted for her spectacular U-turn is that opposition parties are, by and large, at odds with her Brexit plan. She told …