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The Conservatives have won the 326 seats needed to form a majority administration, meaning they are able to govern without the need for a coalition or formal agreement with other parties.
This is as the Labour leader Ed Miliband has stood down on Friday, saying his party must “rebuild” with a new leader.
Mr David Cameron all but declared victory in a speech after being returned as MP for Witney, in which he set out his intention to press ahead with an in/out referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union and to complete the Conservatives’ economic plan.
“My aim remains simple – to govern on the basis of governing for everyone in our United Kingdom,” he said.
“I want to bring our country together, our United Kingdom together, not least by implementing as fast as we can the devolution that we rightly promised and came together with other parties to agree both for Wales and for Scotland.
“In short, I want my party, and I hope a government I would like to lead, to reclaim a mantle that we should never have lost – the mantle of One Nation, One United Kingdom. That is how I will govern if I am fortunate enough to form a government in the coming days.”
Mr Cameron later returned to Downing Street with his wife Samantha and is now having an audience with the Queen at Buckingham Palace.
Chancellor George Osborne said the Conservatives had been “given a mandate to get on with the work we started five years ago” and would follow the “clear instructions” of the British public.
However, Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith acknowledged that governing with a small majority was difficult.
“Whatever else we now do we keep it simple, we keep it focused and we absolutely stick to our manifesto commitments,” he told the BBC.
He said the party would deliver an EU referendum as it was a “red line”.
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