Britain’s political shake-up creates division

LONDON – As Britain’s progressive parties scramble to recover from an electoral trouncing, Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron finds himself facing a different challenge.

Cameron rode to re-election Thursday on fear about the nation’s relationship with the European Union and Scottish separatism. Now he has the task of uniting the country – or at least keeping opponents sufficiently at bay to address those and other issues such as austerity measures and immigration.

How Cameron navigates this political jungle will affect more than just Britain. The prime minister’s pledge to hold a national referendum on EU membership by 2017 – emphasized often during the campaign to prevent right-wing defections – could open a brutal battle over Britain’s place in Europe.

As he begins what he says will be his final term, Cameron must also lead a Parliament with 50 new members with the separatist Scottish National Party. Cameron and the SNP lost little love during the campaign, as Cameron trotted out warnings about an SNP alliance to draw voters away from the Labour Party. Without some kind of reconciliation, Britain could be headed to a second Scottish independence referendum and even the dissolution of the United Kingdom.

These events would create a nightmare in Washington. The U.S. has already seen one of its most important trans-Atlantic allies weakened in recent years, and a divorce with Scotland and the EU community would undermine it even further.

The prime minister’s new term, in other words, could be a lot more fraught than the old one.

By winning 331 seats compared with Labour’s 232, Cameron, for the first time in his tenure, has a straight Conservative majority in the British Parliament. But with the election over, Cameron must face the consequences of the tactics that helped him get it.

The Scottish front is perilous. Cameron hit the anti-SNP card hard during the campaign. But far from a marginal group, the party, under the dynamic new leader Nicola Sturgeon, has soared since Scotland’s failed independence vote in September.

The prime minister has promised greater control to Scots in areas such as energy and welfare. But too much autonomy risks a backlash among Conservatives in Parliament and the electorate. Not enough autonomy, and a second referendum could be in the wings.

Cameron has a potentially even trickier dance with the EU.

Many experts believe he doesn’t want to get to a referendum and is simply holding out for more favorable terms from the likes of Germany and France. But he has pushed far enough, for long enough, that backing out of the referendum could be political suicide for the Conservatives, who are believed to have attracted many votes with the pledge.

A British exit from the union is supported by the anti-immigration and anti-EU United Kingdom Independence Party, which, though it won only one seat Thursday, garnered nearly 4 million votes, a major increase that makes UKIP one of the Conservative Party’s biggest electoral threats.

About the same time as Cameron was laying out his plans and meeting with Queen Elizabeth II, a more somber theme was playing out a few miles away. The Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, his eyes red and puffy, addressed staffers of his socially progressive party.

“Devastating,” “heartbreaking” and “crushing,” he said of Thursday’s election results, in which the party went from 57 seats to 8. People in the room at one point began clapping, but Clegg waved off the applause. He then resigned as party leader.

Labour Party leader Ed Miliband looked similarly worn out after his party failed to mount the challenge many pollsters thought it would.

“I take absolute and total responsibility for the result and our defeat at this election,” he said to party workers. He then resigned, too.