LONDON — Prime Minister David Cameron was celebrating a surprise victory in the British election Friday as his Conservative Party won a narrow outright majority over a faltering opposition.
The result lifted a fog of uncertainty, removing the prospect of an inconclusive hung parliament.
However, it leaves Britain facing two constitutional crises: a potentially damaging referendum on whether to quit the European Union, and renewed pressure from Scottish nationalists who want to leave the 300-year-old United Kingdom.
The opposition Labour Party took a beating, with its main campaign strategist among those voted out.
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Shares in U.K. financial institutions jumped in early trading Friday as the threat of Labour’s proposed tax hikes on banks receded.
The energized Scottish National Party pulled off a landslide, taking 56 of the 59 seats in Scotland and setting a string of records including the election of Britain’s youngest member of parliament for 350 years — a 20-year-old university student.
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With 647 out of 650 results counted at 12:30 p.m. (7:30 a.m. ET), NBC News’ U.K. partner ITV Newsreported the Conservatives had 328 House of Commons seats — two more than it needed to govern.
The result was far better for Cameron than opinion pollsters, or even his own party, had foreseen. He beamed early Friday after being re-elected in his constituency in England’s rural Oxfordshire.
“This is clearly a very strong night for the Conservative Party,” he said.
“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,” Cameron said, vowing to counter the rise of nationalism with more powers for Scotland and Wales.
He also said he would fulfil his pre-election promise of a referendum on European Union membership.








