Hung Parliament as Conservatives lose seats and Labour makes gains in General Election

It comes as Theresa May said the Conservatives would act to ensure "stability" if the Tories were the largest party with the biggest number of votes.

It is forcast the party will achieve 319 seats compared to Labours 260, the SNP's 35 and Lib Dems 14.

Mrs May's comments came after her massive gamble on a snap election backfired sensationally.

After going into the June 8 poll on the back of opinion polls suggesting she was heading for a substantially increased majority, Mrs May has lost two ministers, including the author of her manifesto, among a string of Conservative casualties.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn called on the Prime Minister to resign, saying she should "go and make way for a government that is truly representative of this country".

Accepting victory in Islington North, Mr Corbyn said voters had opted for hope and "turned their backs on the politics of austerity".

The pound plummeted more than 1.5% against the US dollar and 1% against the euro as the shock figures set the scene for political turmoil at Westminster, disruption to upcoming Brexit negotiations and the possibility of a second election later in the year.

Speaking as she was re-elected MP for Maidenhead, Mrs May said: "At this time, more than anything else, this country needs a period of stability.

"If, as the indications have shown and if this is correct, the Conservative Party has won the most seats and probably the most votes, then it will be incumbent on us to ensure that we have that period of stability and that is exactly what we will do."

The humiliating result facing Mrs May sparked questions about her future as PM and Conservative leader, after she took the fateful decision to bring forward the election date by three years in the hope of extending her Commons majority to bolster her position in Brexit talks.

Former chancellor George Osborne, sacked from the Cabinet by Mrs May when she took office last July, told ITV: "Clearly if she's got a worse result than two years ago and is almost unable to form a government then she I doubt will survive in the long term as Conservative party leader."

Labour deputy leader Tom Watson said the party would hold Mrs May to her campaign statement that if she lost six or more seats she would no longer be Prime Minister.

"Theresa May's authority has been undermined by this election," said Mr Watson.

"She is a damaged Prime Minister whose reputation may never recover."

Mr Osborne said there would be "a very big post mortem coming" in the party after the loss of Treasury minister Jane Ellison in Battersea.

Her defeat was followed by the loss of Cabinet Office minister Ben Gummer in Ipswich.

Mr Gummer was the author of the manifesto which was blamed for driving away older voters furious at its plans to sell elderly people's homes after their deaths to pay for social care.

Labour took Canterbury, a seat which had been held by Conservatives since 1918.

Other prominent departures from the House of Commons included former deputy prime minister and ex-Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, who lost Sheffield Hallam to Labour after 12 years, and the Scottish National Party's Westminster leader Angus Robertson, whose Moray seat was taken by Tories.

Liberal Democrats were celebrating the return of former ministers Sir Vince Cable, Sir Ed Davey and Jo Swinson two years after they lost their parliamentary seats.

And Tim Farron's party took Bath back from Conservatives.

Mr Farron held on to his Westmorland and Lonsdale seat in Cumbria on a much-reduced majority, down from 8,949 in 2015 to just 777 now.

Ukip suffered a collapse in its support across the country following its best ever showing two years ago, with former voters switching to both Labour and the Tories.

Leader Paul Nuttall came a distant third in Boston & Skegness, taking little more than 3,000 votes.

With just 10 days to go before talks on Britain's EU withdrawal are due to begin in Brussels, Mr Nuttall said Mrs May had put Brexit "in jeopardy" by her decision to call a snap election.

"I said at the start this election was wrong. Hubris," he said.

Mr Nuttall's predecessor Nigel Farage said the Brexit project would be "in some trouble" if a Corbyn-led administration took office, and suggested he might return to frontline politics if doubts were raised about the UK's withdrawal from the EU.

He questioned Mrs May's position, saying: "Whatever the true result, the Conservative party needs a leader that believes in Brexit."

Mr Corbyn's party claimed Tory scalps in Stockton South and Vale of Clwyd and took Rutherglen & Hamilton West from the SNP, one of a series of reversals for the nationalists following their historic tally of 56 out of 59 seats north of the border in 2015.

Education Secretary Justine Greening scraped home in Putney, but saw her 2015 majority of more than 10,000 shrink to little more than 1,500.

Shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry said Labour "could form the next government" and would attempt to do so as a minority government if results allowed, rather than seeking to form a coalition with other progressive parties like the Lib Dems.

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, often tipped as a potential successor to Mrs May as Tory leader, said: "We've got to listen to our constituents and listen to their concerns."