Reuters, LONDON :Britons voted on Thursday in the tightest election for decades; one that could cause government gridlock, push the world’s fifth-largest economy closer to leaving the European Union and stoke a second attempt by Scotland to break away.Final opinion polls showed Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservatives and Ed Miliband’s opposition Labour Party almost in a dead heat, indicating neither will win enough seats for an outright majority in the 650-seat parliament.However, the surveys suggested there had been some late movement toward Labour.”This race is going to be the closest we have ever seen,” Miliband told supporters in Pendle, northern England, on the eve of the vote. “It is going to go down to the wire.”Cameron said only his Conservatives could deliver strong, stable government: “All other options will end in chaos,” he insisted.If neither party wins an overall majority, talks will begin on Friday with smaller parties in a race to strike deals.That could lead to a formal coalition, like the one Cameron has led for the past five years with the centrist Liberal Democrats, or it could produce a fragile minority government making trade-offs to guarantee support on key votes.Britain’s top share index fell to a one-month low over the election uncertainty although there was no expectation of any significant sell-off.The pound was slightly weaker but the short-term cost of protection against swings in the pound jumped to multi-year highs.”What is important to us is clarity as soon as possible,” Andrew Witty, chief executive of GlaxoSmithKline, Britain’s sixth-largest company by market value, told reporters.Opinion polls released on Thursday showed the outcome was still too close to call and that turnout would be higher than in recent elections.Scottish nationalists, who lost an independence referendum last September, are likely to win the lion’s share of seats in Scotland, capturing dozens from Labour, and making Miliband’s chances of winning an overall majority much slimmer.In England, UKIP has courted Conservative and Labour voters but is likely to damage Cameron’s chances of a majority most, despite the Prime Minister promising an in-out referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union by the end of 2017 in an attempt to reassure Conservative voters considering straying.Any referendum is likely to damage the City of London’s standing as a global financial center and unsettle markets.Cameron has warned that Miliband will only be able to rule with the help of the SNP, a result he says could place the United Kingdom in peril.Miliband has ruled out doing a deal with the nationalists, despite their overtures to form an alliance against the Conservatives.”If we work together we can lock out the Tories. We will work with others across the United Kingdom, that is my pledge,” SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon said in Edinburgh.If Cameron fails to win a majority, he could try to strike a deal with the Liberal Democrats, a repeat of the 2010 coalition, and possibly also with Northern Irish unionists and UKIP.Polls opened at 0600 GMT (02:00 p.m. EDT) for the United Kingdom’s 48 million voters and close at 2100 GMT (05:00 p.m. EDT). An exit poll will be published as soon as polls close, and most results are expected in the early hours of Friday.
