Britain braces for election that could herald EU exit

Britain today marked 100 days until one of the most unpredictable elections in memory, as Prime Minister David Cameron fights to retain power and call a referendum on European Union membership.
A fragmented vote in which no party wins an overall majority is seen as the most likely result, meaning smaller parties will probably have to prop up either Cameron's Conservatives or the main opposition Labour party.
If the Conservatives win outright on May 7, Cameron has said he will seek to renegotiate Britain's relationship with the EU before calling an in-or-out referendum on a "Brexit" by the end of 2017.

But experts predict that neither the Conservatives nor Labour will secure a majority in the 650-seat House of Commons.
"Like everyone else, I have no idea," Professor Tim Bale, chair in politics at Queen Mary, University of London, told AFP.
"The only prediction is that it's incredibly unlikely that any of the main parties will end up with an overall majority."

Instead, Britain could face days of uncertainty, potentially unsettling financial markets, as the parties hold talks on how to stitch together a government.
For the past five years, the Conservatives have governed with the centrist Liberal Democrats in Britain's first coalition government since World War II.

Opinion polls currently put the Conservatives and centre-left Labour almost neck-and-neck.
The Conservatives are on 32 percent voter support versus 33 per cent for Labour, according to an average of leading surveys calculated by the UK Polling Report website.
Nigel Farage's anti-EU United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) is ranked third with 15 per cent, while the Liberal Democrats have plunged to eight per cent.
Cameron is campaigning on the economy, telling voters they cannot afford to jeopardise Britain's recovery -- the strongest among major European nations -- by ditching the Conservatives.