Less than a week before the general election in the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Teresa May's Conservative Party maintains a 4-point lead over Jeremy Corbyn's Labor Party.  The seat projections show the Conservatives comfortably ahead, but short of a parliamentary majority.

It wasn't supposed to be this close.  When Prime Minister May called for the snap election five weeks ago, the Conservatives enjoyed a 24-point lead over Labor.  But thanks to plummeting approval numbers for May, the election is moving toward an avowed socialist and admirer of communists, Mr. Corbyn.

The chances are rising that the Conservatives will come up short of a majority and be forced to attempt to forge a coalition government or try to rule as a minority party. C orbyn has already said he will not entertain the idea of forming a coalition, which complicates matters for May.

The Express:

Jeremy Corbyn has stressed his stance on "pacts and coalitions" as Labour narrows the gap in the latest election polls.

The Labour leader and Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry said there would be negotiation or deals over policy with the Liberal Democrats or the Greens.

"We are not doing deals, we are not doing coalitions, we are not doing any of these things," Mr Corbyn said on Thursday. "We are fighting to win this election." 

Mrs Thornberry added: "We are fighting to win and we are fighting to win a majority."

In order for a majority government to form, a party needs to hold a minimum of 326 seats out of the 650 constituencies in the UK.

If an election results in a hung Parliament, the incumbent Prime Minister will remain in office until it is decided who will be responsible for forming a new government.

Hung Parliaments however do not automatically mean a party has to form a coalition government.

Any party that secures a minority victory could try to run a minority government, but it would be left in an unstable position that could be hard to maintain.

The U.K. Independence Party has fallen considerably in the polls since its former leader, Nigel Farage, resigned, getting only 3% of the vote.  The Liberal Party has also been in decline with support from only 10% of voters.  At the moment, the seat projections show that the Conservatives are about a dozen votes short of a majority.  May could cobble together a shaky coalition by attracting some support from UKIP and the Liberals, but with the Brexit plan needing to be approved in the next few months, her margin for error is extremely small.

British voters go to the polls on June 8.