London - Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservatives won a stunning victory in Britain's election on Friday, which cut short the careers of his top three rivals and put the country's European Union future in doubt.
Widespread predictions of a close contest with the opposition Labour party turned out to be wide of the mark, as Cameron won 331 seats in the 650-seat House of Commons and a new term as head of a majority Tory government.
The Tory victory was focused on England, however. North of the border, nationalists won a historic landslide in Scotland, just seven months after losing a referendum on independence.
In another dramatic result, the leaders of Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the anti-EU UK Independence Party (UKIP) all stepped down over their parties' electoral drubbing.
Following his own re-election in Witney, near Oxford, Cameron travelled to London to pay a visit to Buckingham Palace, where he was reconfirmed as prime minister by Queen Elizabeth II.
Bringing an end to five years of coalition government with the Liberal Democrats, he announced to reporters in Downing Street: "I will now form a Conservative majority government."
The result is an endorsement of the Conservatives' austerity programme and is likely to see a continuation of cuts to public spending as they seek to reduce a budget deficit of nearly £90 billion (120 billion euros, $140 billion).
The pound rallied and stocks rose as investors welcomed a clear result and a government seen as more "business-friendly".
As he sipped a beer in the Draft House, a bar near London's financial quarter, 39-year-old Ben Woodthorpe said he was pleased with the result.
"I voted for the Conservatives because Labour is not competent on financial matters," he said.
But the election exposed deep political divisions and Cameron avoided triumphalism in his victory speech, promising to "bring our country together".
He said he would deliver on manifesto pledges for the benefit of everyone in Britain, including a vote on the country's membership of the European Union by 2017.
AFP
