Senior Conservatives concede they are not expecting to outperform exit poll

Senior Conservative Ministers have said this morning that they do not expect to outperform the exit poll which predicts there will a Hung Parliament.

Labour have gained many seats from the Conservatives at this stage in the counting, and have ousted Tory heavyweights including Minister Jane Ellison.

Significantly the senior Conservatives failed to say whether they expect to underperform as to what the poll is expecting.

It was revealed once voting ended that no party is expected to command a majority in the House of Commons, meaning there will be a Hung Parliament.

The exit poll conducted by the BBC and Sky suggests that Theresa May will lose her majority with Labour gaining seats. However, no party is expected to achieve the minimum 326 seats that The Queen requires for a government to be formed.

If the exit poll is accurate, this will mean that the Conservative and Labour party will have to negotiate with smaller parties to form a coalition government.

The Conservative Party are twelve seats short of the majority, there is a potential huge margin of error in the poll.

Exit poll in full

Conservatives – 314

Labour – 266

SNP – 34

Liberal Democrats – 14

Green – 1

Ukip – 0

This was last seen in the 2010 General Election where the Conservatives joined forces with the Liberal Democrats in order to gain an overall majority.

In the event that no coalitions can be formed due to party differences or a lack of numbers, there can be a minority government where the Prime Minister commands less than 326 MPs.

The exit poll is also bad news for the SNP and UKIP. UKIP are projected to gain no seats, and the SNP are on course to lose over a dozen.

If the exit poll is indeed correct, which it often isn’t, then we may not know for many days who the next Prime Minister will be.

Royal Central will provide updates throughout the night and into Friday.

To see all the latest election news as it happens, follow our Editor on Twitter, @MonarchyUK

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