The Tories will not be able to form a majority government according to a shock exit poll predicting the result of the General Election.

The forecast - which is not binding but is often very accurate - suggests the Conservative party will lose their current majority with just 314 seats, which would lead to a hung parliament.

A hung parliament is when no party has an overall majority - more seats than all the other parties put together.

There are 650 seats in the House of Commons, so an overall majority would mean winning 326.

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The poll predicts Jeremy Corbyn's Labour will have seriously improved on Ed Miliband's effort in 2015 - with 266 seats compared to 232 in 2015.

It must be pointed out exit polls are not always completely accurate - but in two of the past three elections they have been almost totally correct, our sister paper the Liverpool Echo reports.

But things could change and, if there is a slight difference in the Tories' results, they could edge towards an overall majority.

One thing that is clear, however, is that Theresa May will be seriously damaged by the result that comes in.

She called this snap election with the only aim of gaining a huge majority - and it now appears that is not going to happen.

The exit poll suggests the Scottish National Party will suffer losses from their result of 56 in 2015 with a predicted 34 seats.

The Liberal Democrats would see a minor increase from 8 to 14 and UKIP would end the night with no MPs.