Theresa May seeks snap election for 8 June

UK Prime Minister Theresa May has announced plans to call a snap general election on 8 June.

She said Britain needed certainty, stability and strong leadership following the EU referendum.

Explaining the decision, Mrs May said: "The country is coming together but Westminster is not."

Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn said his Labour Party wanted the election, calling it a chance to get a government that puts "the majority first".

There will be a vote in the House of Commons on Wednesday to approve the election plan - the prime minister needs two thirds of MPs to vote in favour to hold a vote before the next scheduled election date of 2020.

Explaining her change of heart on an early election, Mrs May said: "I have concluded the only way to guarantee certainty and security for years ahead is to hold this election."

She accused Britain's other political parties of "game playing", adding that this risks "our ability to make a success of Brexit and it will cause damaging uncertainty and instability to the country".

"So we need a general election and we need one now. We have at this moment a one-off chance to get this done while the European Union agrees its negotiating position and before the detailed talks begin.

"I have only recently and reluctantly come to this conclusion. Since I became prime minister I've said there should be no election until 2020, but now I have concluded that the only way to guarantee certainty and security for the years ahead is to hold this election and seek your support for the decisions we must take."

In a statement outside Number 10, Mrs May said Labour had threatened to vote against the final Brexit agreement, the Liberal Democrats had stated they wanted to "grind the business of government to a standstill", the SNP have said they would vote against the legislation that formally repeals Britain's membership of the EU - and "unelected" members of the House of Lords had vowed "to fight us every step of the way".

"If we don't hold a general election now, their political game-playing will continue and the negotiations with the European Union will reach their most difficult stage in the run up to the next scheduled election," she said.

For months Theresa May and her team have played down the prospect of an early poll. The reasons were simple. They didn't want to cause instability during Brexit negotiations. They didn't want to go through the technical process of getting round the Fixed Term Parliaments Act.

They didn't want the unpredictability of an election race. And many in the Conservative Party believed there is so little chance of the Labour Party getting its act together before 2020 that they could carry on until then and still expect a sizeable majority.

There was also, for Theresa May, the desire to show that she will be a prime minister who sticks to her word. But the relentless political logic proved too tempting to hold to all of that.