Prime Minister Theresa May’s decision to call an early election has backfired. Picture: Dan Kitwood

And just as it remains an active and angry bloc in Britain, the Australian cousins of those narky UK voters cold be ready to strike here.

There is a lot to be cranky about here.

Further, it underlines the question as to whether this bad-tempered political element is good for government, and for the voters themselves.

Its victories in the US and now Britain have not been unqualified successes.

The triumph of the cranky majority began with the Brexit referendum victory in June last year. The result defied the arguments of so-called elites and experts as ordinary voters asserted their

numbers.

The outcome swept the world and political figures as varied as Donald Trump and Pauline Hanson took inspiration from it. A follow-up shift to the far right in France didn’t happen, but grassroots political muscle had been a hailed in most Western democracies.

Ms May’s early election gamble cost her majority government. Picture: The Press and Journal.Source:Supplied

But that crankiness didn’t disappear in Britain the way it was to supposed to. Those voters were not sated by moves to leave the EU.

Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May has given away her House of Commons majority and must now form a minority government negotiated with 10 Irish Unionists.

With her authority hugely reduced, she must soon — perhaps as soon as a fortnight — begin negotiations for Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union. Plus, she will have to settle a trade agreement with Europe to operate after withdrawal.

When the election count revealed her plight, Mrs May pledged a “period of stability” she was not equipped to deliver.

It wasn’t meant to happen that way, according to the forecasts of polls and pundits.

In a flawed assessment of Tory support, and of voter antagonism towards Labour, Mrs May called a third national ballot in three years by bringing on a general election three years early.

And she got clobbered while Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn, significantly reviled within his own party, emerged as a heroic loser.

Ms May leaves Downing Street with her husband Philip to go to Buckingham Palace and seek the Queen's permission to form a UK government. Picture: Jeff J MitchellSource:Getty Images

As Prime Minister of a minority government, she won’t be able to guarantee certainty in Westminster, and could expect muted co-operation from the other 27 members of the EU.

And there is little chance of a “hard Brexit” — an uncompromised severing of EU ties — being accepted.

A cranky majority came back to rebuke the Conservatives and make clear, in part by shifting many votes to the much-ridiculed Corbyn Labour, it was not to be taken for granted.

It is difficult as yet to tell whether those voters were the same group who succeeded in getting Britain’s removal from the European

Union. UKIP, the party which had Brexit as its dominant policy, wasn’t as prominent in this election.

But the bad temper was obvious.

Australians have a number of grounds to be cranky about: stunted wage growth, high housing prices, rising household expenses among them.

Letting them loose in a general election right now could see polls and pundits again proved wrong.

One consequence of Theresa May’s electoral crash landing is that it will confirm Malcolm Turnbull’s opposition to an early election here.