Britons voted yesterday in the tightest election in decades — one that could cause government gridlock, push the world’s fifth-largest economy closer to leaving the EU and stoke a second attempt by Scotland to break away.
Final opinion polls showed British Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservatives and Ed Miliband’s opposition Labour Party almost in a dead heat, indicating neither would win enough seats for an outright majority in the 650-seat parliament.
However, the surveys suggested there had been some late movement toward Labour.
Photo: Reuters
“This race is going to be the closest we have ever seen,” Miliband told supporters in Pendle, England, on the eve of the vote. “It is going to go down to the wire.”
Cameron said only his Conservatives could deliver strong, stable government.
“All other options will end in chaos,” he said.
The Conservatives portray themselves as the party of jobs and economic recovery, promising to reduce income tax for 30 million people, while forcing through further spending cuts to eliminate a budget deficit still running at 5 percent of GDP.
Labour says it would cut the deficit each year, raise income tax for the highest 1 percent of earners and defend the interests of hard-pressed working families and Britain’s treasured, but financially stretched National Health Service.
If neither party wins an overall majority, talks will begin today with smaller parties in a race to strike deals. That could lead to a formal coalition, like the one Cameron has led for the past five years with the centrist Liberal Democrats, or it could produce a fragile minority government making tradeoffs to guarantee support on key votes.
Leading pollster Peter Kellner of YouGov has predicted the Conservatives will end up with 284 seats to Labour’s 263, with the Scottish National Party (SNP) on 48, the Liberal Democrats 31, the anti-EU UK Independence Party with two, the Greens one, and the Welsh and Northern Irish parties 21.
If that proves correct, both the two big parties would need support from at least two smaller ones to get laws through parliament, as the SNP has ruled out a deal with Cameron.
When no clear winner emerged in the elections of 1974 and 1923, another election was held within a year — but a law passed four years ago makes it much harder to hold a second vote within the five-year parliamentary term.
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