former Shadow First Secretary of State and Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills who eight days later withdrew from the leadership race, to support Owen Smith, the former Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. This was won by Jeremy Corbyn with an increased majority. Following the vote to leave the European Union, Nigel Farage offered his own resignation as leader, something he had campaigned for since 1992. A leadership contest also took place in the Green Party, which led to the joint election on 2 September 2016 of Jonathan Bartley and Caroline Lucas as co-leaders, who took over the role in a job-share arrangement. Lucas, was previously leader until 2010 and is the party's only MP. Strategic cross-party alliances have been initiated, including a "progressive alliance" and a "Patriotic Alliance", as proposed by UKIP donor Arron Banks. In 2017, the prime minister, Theresa May, called a general election. She hoped to increase the conservative majority to diffuse party opposition to her deal to leave the EU. In the election, the conservatives lost seats and the Labour party, under Jeremy Corbyn, gained 30 seats. This led to a minority conservative government supported by the DUP. The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) rated the United Kingdom as a "full democracy" in 2017. In the 2018 EIU democracy index, the UK remained 11th out of the 14 western European nations classed as 'full democracy' with an overall score of 8.53 out of a maximum of 10. It received a comparatively low mark in the 'functioning of government' assessment. In July 2019, Boris Johnson won the leadership of the conservative party following the resignation of May. He became the prime minister by default. In August 2019, Prime Minister Boris Johnson requested the monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, to prorogue the British parliament. Although this measure is common for incoming governments to allow time to prepare the Queen's speech, the move caused great controversy as it was announced to last 23 days instead of the usual 4 or 5 days. It would end the current session of the Parliament that had been running for 2 years and prevent further parliamentary debate. The government stated that it was nothing to do with Brexit and that there would still be "ample time" for debate before Brexit happens. Opponents believed that parliament had been suspended to force through a no-deal Brexit and prevent parliament from