Johnson’s Conservatives captured 364 of the 650 seats in the House of Commons with all bar one seat counted, a comfortable majority of 74 and the party’s best showing in a parliamentary election since Margaret Thatcher triumphed in 1987.

UK general election 2019: Tories secure majority as Corbyn says he won't lead Labour into next election.

Brexit represents the country’s biggest political and economic gamble since World War Two, cutting the world’s fifth largest economy adrift from the vast trading bloc and threatening the integrity of the United Kingdom.

For Johnson, who campaigned on a vow to “Get Brexit Done”, victory was a vindication after anti-Brexit opponents tried one maneuver after another to thwart him during his first chaotic months in office.

“We will get Brexit done on time by the 31st of January, no ifs, no buts, no maybes,” a triumphant Johnson told supporters at a rally in London.

“Leaving the European Union as one United Kingdom, taking back control of our laws, borders, money, our trade, immigration system, delivering on the democratic mandate of the people,” he said, reprising the refrains of his successful Brexit referendum campaign of 2016.

Sterling soared, on course for one of its biggest one-day gains in the past two decades.