Election 2017 live updates: Theresa May claims Conservative government supported by DUP will provide 'certainty'
The Independent will be bringing you all the live updates as the UK's next government is formed
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Theresa May has said she will form a Conservative government backed by the DUP, claiming it can bring "certainty" to the UK.
After visiting the Queen, the Prime Minister claimed there was a "strong relationship" between the two parties, amid concern over the DUP's controversial anti-abortion and anti-LGBT policies.
The PM has also apologised to Conservatives who lost last night. She said: "I'm sorry for all those colleagues who lost their seats." She will "reflect on what we need to do in the future to take the party forward" after the result, she added.
The UK voted for a hung parliament after shock losses for the Conservatives in the 2017 general election. With 649 of 650 seats declared, the Tories had 318 seats - eight short of the figure needed to win outright - with Labour on 261, the SNP on 35 and Liberal Democrats on 12.
Jeremy Corbyn's party increase its share of the vote by 9.6 per cent, while the Tories were up 5.5 per cent, the Liberal Democrats, Greens and SNP saw small loses and Ukip's vote collapsed.
The live blog has now ended
Politicians, voters, and even their pets have been heading to polling stations and are posing for the cameras at every opportunity.
The Prime Minister has made clear that she would rely on the support of the Democratic Unionist Party in order to get her programme through Parliament, despite concern over its stance on issues including equal marriage, abortion and climate change.
Making no allusion to losses suffered by the Conservatives, Ms May said she intended to press ahead with her plans for Brexit.
She faced calls from within her own party to consider her own position after the election, which she brought forward by three years in the hope it would deliver an increased majority in the Commons.
Jeremy Corbyn urged her to resign and allow him to form a minority administration, declaring: “We are ready to serve this country.”
But, after intensive talks with the DUP, the Prime Minister instead drove the short distance to Buckingham Palace to ask the Queen for permission to form a new government.
The final election results came in late on Friday, after Kensington finally declared a Labour win — with a tiny 20-vote majority. They were:
Checked these figures and it's right. Ms Abbott has been returned emphatically despite faltering during the campaign.
Ed Davey regained his seat last night after campaigning prominently on an anti-hard Brexit stance. (As well as on social policy issues like schools and the NHS.)
As uncertainty swirled last night The Independent asked him whether he thought the hung Parliament would mean a stalling or postponement of Brexit.
This morning he said: “I don't know!!”
His answer appears to match the general sentiment.
Theresa May has insisted that she will stick to the Brexit timetable, but the latest election shock is “yet another own goal” that will make “already complex negotiations even more complicated,” said the European Parliament's top Brexit official, Guy Verhofstadt.
Northern Ireland's people voted in favor of remaining inside the European Union in last year's referendum, going against the national trend in favour of Brexit.
The DUP, Ms May's potential new partners in Government, in general favours a “soft Brexit” rather than the “hard Brexit” sought by the PM, and it wants to preserve its open border with the Republic of Ireland, an EU member.
Some experts are calling the Conservatives' unexpected loss of seats a rejection of “hard Brexit”, which would take Britain out of the single market and the customs union and which could see tariffs slapped on British exports to the EU.
Additional reporting by agencies
Heidi Allen, the Conservative MP for South Cambridgeshire, has said Theresa May cannot last longer than six months as leader of a minority government.
She made the remarks on LBC.
After being re-elected last night she tweeted: "We @Conservatives will learn from this. We will listen, collaborate more& demonstrate greater vision& compassion for all. We HAVE to change"
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