David Cameron remains UK prime minister and could form majority government / Toby Melville / Reuters

The general election in the UK brought a completely unexpected result: the Conservative Party won an absolute majority in parliament and will now be able to form its own government.

Meanwhile, even before the election, YouGov polls showed that the Conservatives and Labour were supported by about 34% of Britons. It was expected, however, that the Conservatives would gain more seats in parliament (this is possible, since members of all parties are elected in single-member constituencies), but their advantage over the Labourites would not be very significant and they would not have a majority. There was even a discussion of the option in which the Labourites, having received fewer seats, would be able to form a government with the support of the Scottish National Party (SNP), and their leader Ed Miliband would become prime minister.

But it so happened that following the election results, Miliband and the leaders of two other parties resigned.

The results of the votes in all 650 constituencies have been counted. The Conservatives won 331 constituencies and received the corresponding number of seats in parliament – out of the 326 needed to form a majority government. The party received more than half of the seats for the first time since 1992 and 28 more than in the last election in 2010. Then the Conservatives had to form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats. A total of 36.93% of voters voted for the Conservative Party (see table).

Final results of the UK elections

Number of seats in parliament won by each party, change from 2010 elections and % of popular vote

/ Source: Press Association

Labour's seats fell by 25 to 232, its worst result since 1987, with 30.45% of the vote. The third-largest party in parliament will be the SNP, which won 56 of Scotland's 59 constituencies. In the last parliament, it had just six seats. It is the first time since the 1918 election, which saw Irish nationalists gain a significant majority, that a party advocating for separation from the United Kingdom has won such a large majority.

Prime Minister David Cameron has already promised to give Scotland more autonomy, although all parties have previously agreed that it, Wales and Northern Ireland should have more power. “We are planning to create the strongest devolved government in the world in Scotland, which will have significant tax powers,” Cameron said.

At the same time, he said, the Conservatives would govern “as a party of one nation.” “Together we can make Britain even greater,” he said, returning to his Downing Street residence after a visit to Queen Elizabeth II, who asked him to form a government.

Cameron also repeated his promise to hold a referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union. The prime minister himself is against it, but under pressure from the right in his party, he had previously promised to hold talks with the EU to review relations and, if re-elected, to give the British people until 2017 to decide on the country's membership in the union.

Leaders of three British parties resign

Politics / International Affairs

The far-right UKIP party came in third place in terms of votes (12.64%), but its representative won only one constituency. Previously, UKIP had two seats in parliament. Its leader Nigel Farage, who managed to lead his party to victory in the European Parliament elections a year ago (then it received 27.5% of the British vote – more than the Conservatives and Labour), resigned as party leader.

The Liberal Democrat leader Neil Clegg did the same: his party was left with eight seats (its worst result since 1970), having lost 49. Clegg, who was deputy prime minister, and three of his fellow party members were stripped of their government posts.

The Democratic Unionist Party, which was not represented in the last parliament, also won eight seats, and in this election it received 13 times fewer votes than the Liberal Democrats.

The election result will not affect the UK's sovereign rating, Moody's Investors Service said. "The Conservatives are committed to a policy of further fiscal consolidation aimed at stabilising and eventually reversing the build-up of public debt," the agency said in a statement. "However, the question of the UK's continued membership of the European Union may have a wider impact."

Stock market participants were optimistic about the certainty that came with the election results: the FTSE 100 index rose by 2.3% on Friday to 7,046.8 points, and the pound sterling rose by 1.3% to $1.545 (during trading, the rise reached 1.8%).

Conservatives win majority in British parliament