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:
From a few hours ago now, but still worth reading Joe Watts' take on who might replace Theresa May as Conservative leader
The USA Today editorial board has said Democrats in the US "should be paying attention" to the UK election result.
It said: "Members of the Labour Party are busy congratulating themselves for a night that few polls predicted. But they should be asking themselves why they are running a distant second and continue to be on the outside looking in.
"Long gone is Tony Blair and his optimistic centrism. In his place is the gruff Jeremy Corbyn, whose answer to everything is nationalizing major industries and expanding entitlements with higher taxes."
Democrats have a "golden opportunity" to make gains in the mid-terms, USA Today said, but that "won’t happen if they follow the lead of Labour and adopt far-left policies or get behind people like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., the 75-year-old self-proclaimed democratic socialist".
The BBC's Huw Edwards tells viewers wondering why senior Conservatives are not being interviewed: "Believe me, we've asked many, many times. They're not available as we speak."
He had just finished speaking to Labour's Shami Chakrabarti who said she believed the electorate had got to know Jeremy Corbyn in recent weeks and that that had swung votes in his favour.
Boris Johnson has said: "Delighted to be reappointed Foreign Secretary. Lots of great work to do for greatest country on earth. Let's get cracking for Global Britain".
Former Labour Home Secretary Jack Straw has been speaking with the BBC.
He said the Prime Minister was right to apologise, “but I still don't think she gets it about why she lost”.
He said: “There were these catastrophic errors made in the campaign and none of us could believe it because, frankly, everybody in the party including those around Jeremy Corbyn thought we were in for a bad night.
“Elementary mistake one was deciding, Ms May, to assault her own supporters through the so-called ‘dementia tax’, so bad that even the Daily Mail turned on her, and then of course to do a u-turn.
“Elementary mistake two was for Ms May to polarise the whole of her campaign on herself. So the party didn’t exist, it was all about ‘I, I, I’.
“Tony Blair never did that, Margaret Thatcher didn’t ever do that, even in their ascendancy, because both of them understood that if they won, then they would get the credit anyway.”
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