UK Election: David Cameron claims shock majority victory

British Prime Minister David Cameron and his wife Samantha arrive to 10 Downing Street 

UK Election: David Cameron claims shock majority victory

Clegg, Farage and Miliband have all resigned as party leaders

British Prime Minister David Cameron has returned to Number 10 Downing Street with a majority government.

Despite months of polls forecasting a close-fought contest, a projection suggests the Conservatives will win 328 seats in the House of Commons, after a collapse in support for both Labour and the Liberal Democrats, giving Mr Cameron a majority of six.

"This is clearly a very strong night for the Conservative party," Mr Cameron said after retaining his Witney seat.

However, the victory still means he will have to govern with a far slimmer majority than John Major in 1992 when the party won with a 21-seat margin.

Mr Cameron is back in London and walked back into Downing Street shortly before 8am. He is expected to go to Buckingham Palace to see Queen Elizabeth II at 12:30pm.

Resignations

Ed Miliband has announced his resignation as leader of the Labour Party after a disastrous election defeat.

He made the announcement shortly after noon, saying solemnly: "This is not the speech I wanted to give today because I believe that Britain needed a Labour government."

"I still do but the public voted otherwise last night."

"I am tendering my resignation taking effect after this afternoon's commemoration of VE-Day."

"I want to do so straight away because the party needs an open debate about the right way forward without constraint."

Mr Miliband said he phoned Mr Cameron earlier to congratulate him on his victory.

He added: "I take absolute and total responsibility for this result."

Nick Clegg has also quit as leader of the Liberal Democrats after a "catastrophic" election night.

Mr Clegg announced his resignation after saying that his the election results had been "immeasurably more crushing and unkind" than expected.

In a heartfelt resignation speech he went on to say the results were "the most crushing blow to the Liberal Democrats since the party was founded".

He said: "I always expected this election to be exceptionally difficult for the Liberal Democrats, given the heavy responsibilities we've had to bear in government in the most challenging of circumstances."

"But clearly results have been immeasurably more crushing and unkind than I could ever have feared."

"For that, of course, I must take responsibility and therefore I announce I will be resigning as leader of the Liberal Democrats."

He went on: "It is simply been heartbreaking to see so many friends and colleagues who have served their constituents so diligently, over so many years, abruptly lose their seats because of forces entirely beyond their control."

State of the parties:

Conservative 324
Labour 229
SNP 56
Lib Dem 8
UKIP 1
Others 22

While Nigel Farage is standing down as UKIP leader after failing to win Thanet South.

Talking about his promise to quit if he lost, Mr Farage, said: "I am a man of my word."

However, he did not rule out putting his name forward again in the leadership election in September.

Mr Farage was defeated by almost 3,000 votes, with his Tory rival polling 18,838, while he secured 16,026.

He congratulated the British Prime Minister on his win and said there had been "an earthquake" in Scotland with the SNP victory.

Mr Farage argued it was time to change the voting system pointing out his party had won a significant share of the vote but only secured one seat.

Johnson takes MP seat 

Boris Johnson, who returned to Parliament as MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, said: "It's an astonishing night for the Conservatives.

"If you consider where we were only a few hours ago which was looking at polls saying it is neck and neck, it turns out the British people have the most amazing surprise up their sleeve."

The projection puts the Conservatives on 328 seats, Labour on 233, the Scottish National Party on 56, the Liberal Democrats on 8, UKIP on two, Plaid Cymru on three and the Green party on one.

The markets rallied and the pound made big strides against the dollar as the picture emerged of a majority win for the Conservatives.

The Scottish National Party arrived as a real force in Westminster, winning an unprecedented 52 seats.

Leader Nicola Sturgeon said: "Whatever the Government is that emerges at Westminster, they cannot ignore what has happened in Scotland."

UKIP endured a night of frustration compounded by Mark Reckless losing the Rochester and Strood seat he won in last year's by-election.

However, the party won the third-highest number of votes across the country. Douglas Carswell, who held the seat he was re-elected to after defecting from the Conservative Party in 2014, hit out at the "dysfunctional" political system and said around five million people had cast their ballot for UKIP - but would "be lucky to get a tiny handful of MPs".

And what of the Northern Ireland seats? Journalist and analyst Alan Murray told Newstalk Breakfast earlier it has seen the unionists take 11 of the 18 seats
.