They were certain voters would fill Parliament with extreme political factions making it tough to form a new government, much less keep one together. 
 
 They feared the election would reshape Britain's global role, having ripple effects around the world. 
 
 But Britons have bedeviled expectations. There will be no changing horses in mid-stream. 
 
 Prime Minister David Cameron is poised to retain his office at 10 Downing. 
 
 What does the UK election results mean for the rest of the world? 
 
 It means stable global markets ... for now 
 
 Markets love political steadiness. And it showed Friday. The British pound was rising versus all major global currencies and the U.K.'s main stock market index jumped by 2% in early trading. 
 
 "It averts the risk of a tilt towards leftist policies under a Labour government relying on (Scottish National Party) support," Berenberg chief economist Holger Schmieding said. 
 
 Cameron is credited for Britain's recovery from recession: The U.K. enjoyed the fastest growth of any major developed economy last year, and unemployment has fallen rapidly. 
 
 "There is one elephant in the room and that is the EU referendum," said Tim Besley, professor of economics at the London School of Economics. 
 
 JUST WATCHED Britain's election night from #BigRedBus Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Britain's election night from #BigRedBus 02:45 
 
 It means the possibility of an exit from the EU 
 
 Who hasn't heard the term "Grexit?" 
 
 It refers to the possibility of Greece getting out of the Euro as a result of its disastrous economy. That could take a wrecking ball to Europe's financial markets, worst-case analyses have said. Europe's economy could hit the skids, and the U.S. economy would follow. 
 
 Now, with Conservatives, also called Tories, gaining even more power in the UK, enters the possibility of a "Brexit." Even though Britain does not use the Euro, it would be a much, much bigger wrecking ball. 
 
 Prime Minister Cameron has promised the country a referendum in 2017 on whether to stay in the European Union or to exit out of it. 
 
 "It's hugely risky," said British political analyst Robert Hazell. 
 
 Cameron has a reputation as a moderate conservative, but much like Republicans in the United States, he has his own version of the Tea Party. 
 
 Ultraconservatives want out of the European Union, Hazell said. "I'm sure that Cameron would like Britain to remain within the EU, but the rebels will hold his feet to the fire." 
 
 The referendum will happen, he believes, and the results would be unpredictable. 
 
 It means fears of a fractured country 
 
 Speaking of referendums, many Scots want to split from Britain and tried to with a vote last year. It failed, but the sentiments showed up big in Friday's vote. 
 
 The Scottish National Party swelled from a cottage party to the third largest elected power in parliament. "The Scottish lion has roared this morning across the country," said former SNP leader Alex Salmond. 
 
 Scots have traditionally found their political home in Britain in the center-left Labour Party, which took huge losses in the vote, as Scots looked for a voice of their own. 
 
 JUST WATCHED SNP surges to Scottish landslide Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH SNP surges to Scottish landslide 00:10 
 
 There have been rumblings in the British press that a big win for the SNP could lead to yet another referendum in 2016. 
 
 Many Scots also don't like the Conservative sentiments against the EU, where they'd like to stay. 
 
 In an extreme scenario, Britain could leave the European Union, triggering Scotland to leave Britain, and join the EU. 
 
 "This means that we would have a dis-united Kingdom in an EU which will keep the same number of member states," said former Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, "but of course with Scotland replacing the UK somewhat diminishing overall integration." 
 
 It could make the European Union more of a jigsaw puzzle. 
 
 It means clamping down on immigration 
 
 Immigrants from strife-torn nations have looked to Europe, including the U.K. for a second chance at life. But the Cameron government has made them feel less welcome in recent years. 
 
 Indeed, the Conservatives campaigned on control immigration and capping welfare. 
 
 Among its platforms, "Introducing a new citizen test with British values at its heart." 
 
 Conservatives have been pushed further to the right by another party, the UK Independence Party, or UKIP, which is anti-immigration and unfriendly towards Islam. 
 
 UKIP picked up electoral gains, which will not make them a power in parliament but may get their voices heard more by Conservatives afraid of losing to them in the next election. 
 
 "Although people will portray this as as a great Conservative victory -- and against the expectations it is -- Cameron's problems now are only just beginning because, if he's only got a very small majority, he's going to be in hock to the extreme right wing of his party," said Professor Robert Hazell, of University College London. 
 
 This right wing includes 10 to 20 "repeat rebels" who could cause Cameron major headaches, he said. 
 
 It means diminishing influence globally 
 
 There was a time when the United States had an influential ally in Britain. But lately, Britain hasn't been pulling its weight. It's increasingly taken a back seat to Germany, where Chancellor Angela Merkel has emerged as the go-to European leader in tending to world affairs. 
 
 British leaders have hardly said a word as the EU struggles to keep financially-strapped Greece afloat. They've left that to Merkel. Ditto when it comes to acting as the intermediary between Kiev and Moscow over Ukraine. Merkel's taken the lead on that as well. 
 
 Don't expect that to change. 
 
 During the campaign, Cameron and his opponents talked incessantly about domestic policy. Foreign policy? Not so much. ||||| Democratic Unionist Party leader Peter Robinson, center, celebrates with his general election candidates Nigel Dodds, left, Gavin Robinson, 2nd right, and Jeffrey Donaldson, front right, after they were... (Associated Press) 
 
 LONDON (AP) — 12:20 p.m. (1120 GMT; 7:20 a.m. EDT) 
 
 Ed Miliband, the leader of Britain's Labour Party, says he will step down after a worse-than-expected result in the election. 
 
 The party lost dozens of seats to the separatist Scottish National Party, which took almost all of the 59 seats in Scotland. 
 
 Speaking to party members who cheered in support, Miliband said Friday he wanted to resign straight away so that the party can rebuild itself. 
 
 With 641 of 650 seats counted, Labour has 229 seats, finishing well below the 258 seats secured five years ago by former leader and ex-Prime Minister Gordon Brown. 
 
 ___ 
 
 11:45 a.m. (1045 GMT; 6:45 a.m. EDT) 
 
 Nick Clegg has resigned as leader of Britain's Liberal Democrats after a disastrous result for his party in the election. 
 
 Clegg said he must take responsibility for the party's losses, which he described as much more crushing that he expected. 
 
 The Liberal Democrats, the Conservatives' junior coalition partner, lost most of the seats they held in Parliament. Many of their most senior and experienced politicians lost their seats. 
 
 ___ 
 
 11:40 a.m. (1040 GMT; 6:40 a.m. EDT) 
 
 Nigel Farage has resigned as leader of the populist U.K. Independence Party after failed to win a seat in the U.K. parliamentary election. 
 
 Farage, who had earlier promised to resign if he lost, told activists "I'm a man of my word." 
 
 But he raised the prospect he would consider running again in the future. 
 
 ___ 
 
 11:30 a.m. (1030 GMT; 6:30 a.m. EDT) 
 
 British Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservatives have secured enough seats to form a majority government. 
 
 Results from Thursday's election show that the Conservatives won at least 324 of the House of Commons' 650 seats, enough to form a slim majority government. 
 
 The Conservatives are ahead of their main rival, the Labour Party, which lost dozens of seats to the separatist Scottish National Party. 
 
 The win makes Cameron the first Conservative prime minister to win a second term since Margaret Thatcher. 
 
 Cameron stopped just short of declaring overall victory earlier Friday, saying he hoped to govern "one nation, one United Kingdom" if he was fortunate enough to continue as prime minister. 
 
 ___ 
 
 10:40 a.m. (0940 GMT; 5:40 a.m. EDT) 
 
 The United Kingdom Independence Party leader, Nigel Farage, has lost his bid to win a seat in Parliament and could resign despite his right-wing party's surge to third in the popular vote nationwide. 
 
 Farage finished second to Conservative Party candidate Craig Mackinlay, a former UKIP activist, in the South Thanet constituency east of London as results were announced Friday. 
 
 Before the result, Farage had pledged to quit as UKIP leader if he failed to win the seat. He decried the British electoral system's use of winner-takes-all constituencies. UKIP received nearly 3.8 million votes, but finished second or third in dozens of districts. 
 
 Farage said before the result: "The system is bust. You've got a first-past-the-post system where we clearly become the third party in Britain but get hardly any seats." 
 
 __ 
 
 9:25 a.m. (0825 GMT; 4:25 a.m. EDT) 
 
 With Prime Minister David Cameron on the brink of a majority for another five years of Conservative government in the U.K, markets seemed buoyed by prospect of avoiding weeks of political wrangling for power. 
 
 Mark Dampier, head of investment research at Hargreaves Lansdown stockbrokers, says that "business as usual might be the order of the day from this election result. 
 
 But markets are likely to be concerned over the next two years about the prospect of a referendum on whether or not to leave the European Union. 
 
 HSBC economists Simon Wells and Liz Martins say a referendum on EU membership by end-2017 now seems much more likely. 
 
 ___ 
 
 8:55 a.m. (0755 GMT; 3:55 a.m. EDT) 
 
 Prime Minister David Cameron's office says he is going to Buckingham Palace later Friday to see Queen Elizabeth II. 
 
 Downing Street says that will take place at 12:30p.m. (1130 GMT). 
 
 He is expected to tell her that he has enough support in Parliament to form a government. 
 
 ___ 
 
 8:45 a.m. (0745 GMT; 3:45 a.m. EDT) 
 
 Another big Labour figure has fallen in U.K. national elections, as the party's Treasury spokesman, Ed Balls, lost his seat in northern England to the Conservatives by 422 votes. 
 
 Had Labour won, Balls would have been finance minister. 
 
 He said that "any personal disappointment I have at this result is as nothing as compared to the sense of sorrow I have at the result Labour has achieved ... and the sense of concern I have about the future." 
 
 Balls said Britain faces "five years where questions will arise about the future of our union, about whether we can stay as a member of the European Union and fight for jobs and investment, whether we can make sure we secure our National Health Service at a time when public spending is cut." 
 
 ___ 
 
 8:35 a.m. (0735 GMT; 3:35 a.m. EDT) 
 
 British voters are reacting with surprise as they wake to the news that Prime Minister David Cameron may headed toward a Parliamentary majority. Polls have been showing a virtual dead heat in the race, and many expected weeks of wrangling over who would be in power. 
 
 Account manager Nicky Kelly-Lord, 38, is among those startled by the result. "I thought it would be closer," she says. 
 
 But some, like project manager Jonathan Heeley, 42, thought of it as inevitable that a country dealing with the wake of the 2008 financial crisis would be anxious to keep the economic recovery going. Heeley says, "the country's rebuilding itself and people want to stay with that, that's my opinion." 
 
 ___ 
 
 7:55 a.m. (0655 GMT, 2:55 a.m. EDT) 
 
 All night, famous political faces and household names in Britain had to stand on stages at vote counting centers to hear they had lost their seats in Parliament. 
 
 Douglas Alexander, who directed the opposition Labour's campaign and would have been Britain's foreign secretary if they had won, was defeated by a 20-year-old student from the Scottish National Party. 
 
 The Liberal Democrats suffered the worst, as almost their entire top team — many of them government ministers — was felled. Casualties included Business Secretary Vince Cable, chief secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander, Energy Secretary Ed Davey and high-profile lawmakers Lynne Featherstone and Simon Hughes. 
 
 "This has been a terrible night for our party all over," Cable said. "But I am absolutely sure that we are going to bounce back." 
 
 Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg kept his own seat but was meeting with colleagues Friday to figure out whether he will resign. 
 
 ___ 
 
 7:45 a.m. (0645 GMT, 2:45 a.m. EDT) 
 
 All seats in Scotland have been counted in Britain's latest vote, making clear the scale of the landslide by the Scottish National Party, which captured 56 of the region's 59 seats. 
 
 That was a gain of 50 seats over the nationalists' previous six seats in the 650-seat House of Commons. 
 
 The opposition Labour Party lost 40 seats in Scotland. The result left the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats with just one seat each in Scotland. 
 
 ___ 
 
 7:20 a.m. (0620 GMT, 2:20 a.m. EDT) 
 
 With 568 of 650 constituencies reporting results Friday morning in Britain's parliamentary election, the Conservatives were leading with 269 seats, according to election officials. 
 
 The opposition Labour Party has won 214 seats and the Scottish National Party 55. Eight seats have gone to the Democratic Unionists in Northern Ireland and to the Liberal Democrats, and the U.K. Independence Party has earned one seat. Thirteen seats went to other smaller parties. 
 
 An exit poll has predicted that the Conservatives will be the top party in Thursday's vote and the chief pollster says the Conservatives may even capture a majority of the 650 seats in the House of Commons. 
 
 ___ 
 
 7 a.m. (0600 GMT, 2 a.m. EDT) 
 
 With 508 of 650 constituencies reporting results Friday morning in Britain's parliamentary election, the Conservatives were leading with 222 seats, according to election officials. 
 
 The opposition Labour Party has won 203 seats and the Scottish National Party 55. Eight seats have gone to the Democratic Unionists in Northern Ireland, while the Liberal Democrats won six seats and the U.K. Independence Party earned one. Thirteen seats went to other smaller parties. 
 
 An exit poll has predicted that the Conservatives will be the top party in Thursday's vote, winning 316 of the 650 seats in the House of Commons. 
 
 ___ 
 
 6:40 a.m. (0540 GMT, 1:40 a.m. EDT) 
 
 Labour leader Ed Miliband has acknowledged that his party is facing likely defeat in Britain's general election. 
 
 He says "This has clearly been a very disappointing and difficult night for the Labour Party." 
 
 Miliband won his own Doncaster North seat, but Labour looks set to win fewer than the 256 seats it held before the election. It has been all but wiped out in Scotland, a former stronghold, as voters defected in droves to the Scottish National Party. 
 
 Miliband said "we haven't made the gains that we'd wanted in England and Wales and in Scotland we have seen a surge of nationalism overwhelm our party." 
 
 He said whoever is prime minister in the next government would face the challenge of uniting Britain after a divisive campaign. 
 
 ___ 
 
 6:25 a.m. (0525 GMT, 1:25 a.m. EDT) 
 
 George Galloway, one of Britain's most colorful and controversial figures, has lost his Bradford West seat to the Labour Party. 
 
 Galloway, an outspoken critic of Israel and the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, won the seat from Labour in a 2012 special election. But some locals accused the left-wing firebrand — who once saluted Saddam Hussein and has appeared on a reality-TV show pretending to be a cat — of spending little time in Bradford, which has a large Muslim population. 
 
 The candidate from the tiny Respect Party lost by a wide margin to Labour's Naz Shah after a bitter campaign in the northern England city. Shah is a political newcomer who has overcome childhood poverty, a teenage forced marriage and the imprisonment of her mother for killing an abusive partner. 
 
 Shah had urged voters to reject Galloway because "we do not need a one-man Messiah to tell us how to come and fix up Bradford." 
 
 ___ 
 
 6:15 a.m. (0515 GMT, 1:15 a.m. EDT) 
 
 Prime Minister David Cameron has easily won his Witney seat in southern England, and stopped just short for declaring overall election victory for his Conservatives. 
 
 He told voters "this is clearly a very strong night for the Conservative Party." 
 
 Results seem to support an exit poll's prediction the Tories will be the biggest seat in the House of Commons and may even win a majority of seats. 
 
 A Conservative-led government would face a divided Britain, with the pro-independence Scottish National Party holding almost all the seats north of the border. Cameron has vowed to counter the rise of Scottish nationalism with more powers for Scotland and Wales within the United Kingdom. 
 
 He says "I want my party, and I hope a government that I would like to lead, to reclaim a mantle that we should never have lost — the mantle of one nation, one United Kingdom." 
 
 ___ 
 
 5:40 a.m. (0440 GMT, 12:40 a.m. EDT) 
 
 Liberal Democrat Party leader Nick Clegg managed to hang on to his seat in Parliament when results were announced Friday morning, but admitted that his party had suffered a terrible string of setbacks in Britain's general election. 
 
 The party that had been the junior partner in a Conservative-led government lost most of its seats. An exit poll suggested it would win perhaps 10 of the 650 seats in the House of Commons — down from 56 — and several major party figures were ousted by voters. 
 
 After his own win, a woeful Clegg said "It is now painfully clear this has been a cruel and punishing night for the Liberal Democrats." Clegg, who has served as the U.K.'s deputy prime minister for the last five years, hinted that he would be discussing his party leadership with colleges later Friday. 
 
 ___ 
 
 5 a.m. (0400 GMT, midnight EDT) 
 
 He's back. London Mayor Boris Johnson has once again won a seat in parliament, this time representing voters in the Uxbridge and Ruislip South district, as Conservative Party candidates did much better than expected in Britain's election. 
 
 The shaggy-haired mayor, seen as a possible future Conservative Party leader, had previously represented Henley. 
 
 "The people of Britain, after a long and exhausting campaign, have finally spoken," he said early Friday. "They have decisively rejected any attempt to take this country back to the 1970s. They want us to go forward with the sensible, moderate policies that have led to a sustained economic recovery." 
 
 Johnson will do both jobs until voters choose a new London mayor in 2016. ||||| Forget Vince Cable. Forget, if you can, Ed Balls (and I know that’s hard, because what a joyous result that was). Expel from your mind the image of Nick Clegg crying into his cornflakes this morning while texting his old pals in the Euro-oligarchy to see if they will give him a new plush job that involves no contact with pesky plebs. For last night there was an even bigger loser than those guys. Russell Brand. Or ‘Rusty Rockets’, as his politics-packed Twitterfeed has it. Rusty being the operative word, for now we know that the much-hyped ability of slebs like Brand to sway public sentiment is in a serious state of decomposition. 
 
 This election has just done to Brand what the last election did to Clegg: exposed that his powers of persuasion over the little people are nothing more than a Guardianista fantasy. In 2010 every liberal was banging on about Cleggmania and saying Nick was the Obama of Britain. (Obama should have sued.) Then the election results came in and revealed that Clegg’s Lib Dems actually lost seats – 57, down from 61 in 2005 (and now, of course, his party is wiped out). 
 
 This time round, leftish observers talked up the ‘Brand effect’, the possibility that Rusty’s reversal on not voting and his interview with and endorsement of Miliband might help swing the election. ‘The Tories should be worried’, declared the Guardian. Yeah, not so much. If Brand had any effect – and he didn’t – it was only to damn Labour even more than it was already damned. 
 
 The bigging-up of Brand’s intervention in the election was seat-shiftingly embarrassing. ‘He has nearly 10 million Twitter followers… he is listened to by hundreds of thousands of disillusioned Britons… Russell Brand matters’, said Owen Jones, clearly viewing Brand as a kind of priestly figure with a mystical hold over that inscrutable blob (us lot) that politicians can’t connect with. In another piece, Jones said ‘Miliband’s best route to young voters is Russell Brand’, not stopping to think that it might be super-weird that the leader of the alleged party of working people can only speak to the youth via a floppy-haired 40-year-old tabloid filler who hasn’t made a decent gag since 2008. 
 
 A friend of mine lives opposite Russell Brand and snapped this picture of Ed Milliband leaving his house…urm pic.twitter.com/kHGVWFbpVZ 
 
 — Elisa Misu Solaris (@ElisaMisu) April 27, 2015 
 
 Elsewhere, commentators hailed Brand as the man who has ‘access to voters politicians can’t reach’. Brand was treated as a celeb conduit, a connector of the political class with the plebs, someone who could actually turn things around. ‘The Tories should be worried.’ People seriously said that. 
 
 We can laugh at it all now, and we should – in fact, it’s important that we do. Because it turns out that Brand’s ability to get people lining up behind Miliband was pure bluster. This calls into question, not only the impact of Russell’s silly, increasingly David Icke-like ‘Trews’ videos, but also the whole modern trend for shoving celebs into the political limelight in the desperate hope that they might get the lazy little people interested and engaged in political stuff. 
 
 Hilariously, the very same people who accuse the Murdoch papers of brainwashing their readers into voting for the Tories – such undiluted snobbery – believed that a celeb with a webcam and a lively Twitter presence could simply click his fingers and get the hordes voting Labour. But he couldn’t. And it isn’t hard to see why. It’s because people aren’t idiots. They want substance, seriousness, not finger-wagging gags about EVIL TORIES and instructions to ‘save Britain’ by giving the nod to Ed. 
 
 Brandmania ultimately spoke to the gaping, chasm-like disconnection of the Labour movement, the liberal elite and the Twitterati from ordinary people. Incapable of speaking directly to the masses, they had to employ a sleb to try to do it on their behalf. Their reliance on Rusty revealed their own lack of any serious message, or any means of communicating it to the people. And now they are dumbfounded by the election results, utterly unable to comprehend why their favoured party did so badly. ‘But we had RUSSELL BRAND on our side!’ It’s amazing – they’re like medieval kings, staring in bemusement at the throng, wondering why it refuses to heed the messages of their long-haired missionary. ||||| BRUSSELS (AP) — One huge election victory under his belt, David Cameron now heads into another fundamental campaign for Britain with renewed vigor: should his island nation remain in the European Union if there is no reform within the next two years. 
 
 Even if groundbreaking changes to the way the EU works are unlikely to be achieved within the two-year timeframe for a British referendum, many believe there is a groundswell for just enough changes to keep Britain in. 
 
 Syad Kamall, leader of the Conservative group in the EU parliament, said Friday that Cameron "clearly has a mandate to pursue" drastic EU reform, 
 
 EPP Christian Democrat leader Manfred Weber says that "Europeans must also start thinking about whether it is time" for EU reform to accommodate Britain. ||||| British Prime Minister David Cameron is on the cusp of returning to office after Thursday's election. Returns show his Conservative Party close to winning a majority of parliament. (May 8) AP 
 
 An exit poll that predicts the Conservative Party led by Prime Minister David Cameron will win 316 seats in Parliament is projected onto BBC Broadcasting House in London on May 7, 2015. (Photo: Jack Taylor, AFP/Getty Images) 
 
 LONDON — Despite dire polls for the Conservative Party — Tories — throughout the campaign and even with a turn to favor opposition Labour in the last few days, Tory party insiders have maintained a steely optimism about Thursday night's parliamentary vote in Britain. 
 
 The Tories would come out on top because the election was about the economy, and on that issue there was no doubt: Voters trusted them more than the Labour Party. And the polls, they felt, were wrong because, historically, the British don't like to admit that they might vote Tory, with its reputation as the "mean" party. 
 
 But by 10 p.m., when the exit polls were released — with the nation quite literally on the edge of its seat, gathered at election parties everywhere — the Tories appeared to be proved right. Rather than the best-case predictions by many pollsters and observers of 276 seats for the Tories, they would likely get 316 of the 326 needed for an absolute majority. Not over the top, but in easy sight of putting together a governing coalition. 
 
 Disbelief was, among all non-Tories, the singular immediate response. 
 
 Spokespeople for the devastated Labour Party, which exit polls put at 239 seats, simply refused to accept the results, continuing to argue with flabbergasted expressions that somehow magically when the actual results came in, they would find the 50 seats they would need to block another Tory government. 
 
 The other big losers were the Liberal Democrats, the current coalition partner in the Tory-led government. They were equally ravaged by a fall from 57 seats to a projected 10, looking wide-eyed and incredulous on live television. Such a large drop might mean that much of the party's leadership, possibly including Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, would be wiped away. 
 
 Even the other big winner, according to the projections, the Scottish National Party (SNP), which looked like it might take all of Labour's seats in Scotland and advancing from 6 to 58 seats in all, said it was skeptical of such an overwhelming victory. 
 
 But the numbers for both the Tory's and SNP were so large, and the numbers for Labour and the Lib Dems so bleak and depressing, that even a correction in the exit polls was unlikely to change the clear and extraordinary direction of the results. 
 
 British Prime Minister and Conservative leader David Cameron, left, departs from a polling station after voting with his wife Samantha, at the village of Spelsbury in Oxfordshire on May 7, 2015. (Photo: Andy Rain, EPA) 
 
 David Cameron's Tories were in a position not only to form a new coalition and working majority, but to do so with very little horse-trading. The centrist Lib Dems had hoped that even if they lost seats they would be king makers in what was expected to be a close split between Labour and the Tories. Now, practically speaking, they would have no place to go except to follow the Tories, and they would have no leverage with which to negotiate a favorable place in a new coalition. 
 
 In fact, at 316 seats, the Tories could easily turn to the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), with its eight projected seats to reach the voting majority of 323 (Sinn Féin, another Irish party, has five seats, but, in protest, doesn't sit). 
 
 It is not just the Tories unexpected strength that appears now to recast U.K. politics, but it is also Labour's weakness. If the election projections hold, Labour's leader, Ed Miliband, will likely resign or be forced out by the end of the week. 
 
 It is also the rise of the SNP, likely more determined, more militant and far larger than anyone imagined it might ever be, that would become perhaps the central issue in British politics. Nothing more clearly represents the divide and enmity between England and Scotland than a strong Tory showing and an even more dramatic SNP sweep. 
 
 It might be argued that the Cameron government's campaign last year to defeat the referendum for Scottish independence helped propel the popularity of the SNP, which in turn undermined the Labour Party's traditional strength in Scotland, thereby helping to insure the Tory victory. 
 
 It was supposed to be Labour that would make a Devil's bargain with the SNP and, likely, face new calls for Scottish independence. 
 
 But now it seems that, with his new governing majority expected to be in place soon, Cameron will be the one who is going to have to deal with an ever-greater empowered and recalcitrant Scotland. 
 
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– The Conservative Party swept to power today in Britain's Parliamentary elections, winning a wholly unexpected and resounding victory and bringing the election to a much-quicker-than-expected conclusion. Polls ahead of Election Day showed Conservatives locked in a tight race with the opposition Labour Party, raising the possibility of days or weeks of negotiations to form a government. Instead, the party won an outright majority, taking 326 of 650 seats. But as Prime Minister David Cameron returns to 10 Downing Street in a stronger position than before, a trio of big names are out: Labour Party leader Ed Miliband, Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats, and Independence Party leader Nigel Farage have resigned in the election's wake. More: Line of the night, from Cameron: "I want my party, and I hope a government that I would like to lead, to reclaim a mantle that we should never have lost—the mantle of one nation, one United Kingdom." CNN runs down the implications of the Conservative Party win. Two big ones: Expect to start reading the word "Brexit" much more often, with Cameron having vowed to hold a 2017 referendum on whether the UK should remain a part of the EU. And could Scotland leave Britain? CNN presents the possibility, noting that the Scottish National Party's victory was a staggering one, with it taking 56 out of the 59 UK parliamentary seats in Scotland. CNN points to "rumblings in the British press" that such an SNP victory could spur yet another referendum, this one in 2016, on a split. The view from Michael Wolff: "It might be argued that the Cameron government's campaign last year to defeat the referendum for Scottish independence helped propel the popularity of the SNP, which in turn undermined the Labour Party's traditional strength in Scotland, thereby helping to [ensure] the Tory victory," he writes in USA Today. Interesting side-reading: The biggest loser of the night? Russell Brand. Among the night's most fascinating victors: Mhairi Black, who becomes the UK's youngest lawmaker since 1667.