Prime Minister David Cameron won a shock election victory in Britain, overturning predictions that the vote would be the closest in decades to sweep into office for another five years, with his Labour opponents in tatters.
The sterling currency, bonds and shares surged on a result that reversed expectations of an inconclusive “hung parliament” with Cameron jockeying for power with Labour rival Ed Miliband.
Instead, Cameron was due to meet Queen Elizabeth before noon to accept a swift mandate to form a government.
“This is the sweetest victory of all,” he told enthusiastic supporters at party headquarters. “The real reason to celebrate tonight, the real reason to be proud, the real reason to be excited is we are going to get the opportunity to serve our country again.”
Miliband was expected to step down as Labour leader. He said on Twitter: “The responsibility for the result is mine alone.”
But despite the unexpectedly decisive outcome, more uncertainty looms over whether Britain will stay in the European Union - and even hold together as a country.
Scottish nationalists swept aside Labour, meaning that Scotland, which voted just last year to stay in the United Kingdom, will send just three representatives of major British parties to parliament and be all but shut out of the cabinet. That could revive calls for it to leave the United Kingdom.
Cameron sounded a conciliatory note towards Scotland, likely to be his first immediate headache.
“I want my party – and, I hope, a government I would like to lead – to reclaim a mantle we should never have lost, the mantle of one nation, one United Kingdom,” Cameron, 48, said after winning his own seat in Witney, Oxfordshire.
Cameron’s victory also means Britain will face a vote which he has promised on continued membership in the EU. He says he wants to stay in the bloc, but only if he can renegotiate Britain’s relationship with Brussels.
Cameron returned, smiling beside his wife Samantha, to the prime minister’s office in Downing Street early on Friday. He is expected to declare victory outside the black door of Number 10 Downing Street after his meeting with the queen.
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