The Conservatives are on course to win a majority of 84 seats, the party's biggest majority since Margaret Thatcher was leader, according to a nationwide exit poll.

Boris Johnson's party is set to gain 49 seats, giving it a total of 367, while Jeremy Corbyn's Labour party is on course to lose 70 seats, down to 192.

In Scotland, the survey indicates the SNP will gain 20 seats to achieve its second best ever result in a Westminster election, winning a landslide of 55 seats.

It is the biggest Conservative majority in a general election since Margaret Thatcher's three-digit majorities in the 1980s.

  • Conservatives: 367 seats (+49)
  • Labour: 192 (-70)
  • SNP: 55 (+20)
  • Liberal Democrats 13 (+1)
  • Plaid Cymru 3 (-1)
  • Green 1 (no change)
  • Brexit party 0 (N/A)
  • Other 19 (+1)

To have a majority in the House of Commons a party must have 326 MPs.

Johnson entered the election without a majority - having just 298 Tory MPs - after some quit the party and he withdrew the whip from others when they rebelled over Brexit.

The Prime Minister has said he will begin pushing his withdrawal agreement through parliament before Christmas, with the aim of taking the UK out of the EU by the end of January.

The SNP, meanwhile, said victory in Scotland would reinforce what the party claims is a mandate for a second independence referendum.

Nicola Sturgeon has pledged to request the powers for a vote from the UK Government by the end of the year.

But a constitutional crisis looms, as the Conservatives have vowed to reject any calls from Scottish ministers for a referendum.

The exit poll was conducted throughout the UK and asked 22,790 voters at 144 different polling stations who they backed at the ballot box.