MPs have overwhelmingly backed Theresa May’s plan to hold a snap general election on June 8 in a Commons vote the day after her shock announcement.

The House of Commons backed the poll by 522 votes to just 13.

Under the terms of the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act Mrs May needed to secure at least a two-thirds majority of MPs to make her plan become a reality.

And with the support of both Labour and the Liberal Democrats the Prime Minister was easily able to secure more than the 434 votes she needed as the SNP abstained.

The decision means that the election campaign can now begin in earnest.

The vote came after George Osborne announced that he intends to quit as an MP and after a Prime Minister’s Questions session in which Mrs May and Jeremy Corbyn engaged in fiery clashes.

The returning officer overseeing the Manchester Gorton by-election has said she has no power to cancel the ballot with voters in the constituency due to elect a new MP on May 4.

But Theresa May’s decision to call a snap general election little more than a month later on June 8 put that in doubt.

Downing Street originally indicated that the by-election, triggered by the death of Labour veteran Sir Gerald Kaufman, would go ahead.

But under the timetable for the proposed general election, Parliament will be dissolved on May 3 which means there would be no House of Commons for the new MP to be elected to.

It now seems the Government is looking to fix the situation…

Read the interesting account of what happened in the Parliament HERE