UK exit poll shows Boris Johnson's Conservative Party heading for clear majority

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is set to remain in power with an exit poll on Thursday showing his Conservative Party headed for a clear majority in parliament in the 2019 general election.

The Conservatives are expected to win 368 seats, according to the national exit poll released soon after voting stations around the U.K. closed at 10 p.m. London time. The party needs 322 seats to control Parliament -- and push through Johnson's Brexit plan, The Washington Post reported.

A victory for Johnson and the Conservatives means that they will plow forward with the Brexit, dashing all chances of a second referendum -- of remaining in the European Union. And by January, one of the prominent partners in one of Europe's postwar political and trade bloc will go its own way.

A Conservative majority has been anyway widely anticipated, as opinion polls through much of the six-week campaign showed the party with a steady lead.

A final major poll published Tuesday night by YouGov predicted the Conservatives would win with a 28-seat majority. The pollster said the prediction was within the margin of error and warned that a hung Parliament -- or an even larger Conservative majority -- is still a possibility.

The polls opened Thursday at 7 a.m. in the predawn darkness. The weather forecast was grey, wet and relatively miserable.

This was Britain's third general election in a little more than four years, and the second since the June 2016 Brexit referendum.

While Brexit was dominant in many voters' minds on Thursday, this was not purely a Brexit election.

Johnson has been the pied piper for Brexit since the 2016 referendum, though in the election campaign, he didn't say much about the reasons for leaving -- except to promise that after Brexit, his government will unleash British potential on a global stage.

His dominant message has been "Get Brexit Done."

The prime minister had also worn the slogan on his apron as he made meat pies in front of the cameras.

Untangling 45 years of integration with Europe -- not only on trade, finance, migration and manufacturing but also on security, intelligence, aviation, fishing, medicine patents and data sharing -- will take another year or more of hard-fought negotiations with the continent and will almost certainly dominate headlines and consume the agenda in Westminster.

If Johnson wins, the Conservatives have promised -- in capital letters in the party's manifesto -- that he will never, ever ask for another Brexit delay beyond the December 2020 deadline.

Johnson's political rival Corbyn, during his election campaign, had proposed a softer Brexit -- plus the guarantee of a second referendum within six months, another national vote on whether to stay or go, with the option to call the whole thing off.

Labour also hammered away on a theme that the prime minister and his party "just don't care" the National Health Service.