Re-election of Conservatives in Britain doesn’t mean stability

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David Cameron's message to Britain was simple and, in the end, effective: Re-elect his Conservatives or risk the "chaos" of a minority Labour government supported by Scottish nationalists.

Mr. Cameron repeated the warning at every stop in the final days of the campaign, a tactic some credited for a final-day surge in Conservative support that saw the party capture 331 of 650 House of Commons seats in Thursday's general election.

The Conservative victory flew in the face of weeks of opinion polls suggesting that Britain was headed toward a hung Parliament with no clear winner. The result was so resounding that all three main opposition leaders – Ed Miliband of Labour, Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats and Nigel Farage of the U.K Independence Party – announced their resignations on Friday.

But if Britons thought they were opting for stability by rehiring the Conservatives, who had governed since 2010 in coalition with the Liberal Democrats, the next five years are likely to deliver anything but.

The Conservatives' victory puts Britain on course for an in-or-out referendum on the country's membership in the European Union by 2017 at the latest. And the Scottish National Party's capture of 56 of the 59 seats in Scotland is already fuelling talk of a second plebiscite on Scottish independence.

Mr. Cameron set a steady-as-she-goes tone on Friday, reappointing George Osborne as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Mr. Osborne was also named First Secretary of State, effectively making him Mr. Cameron's No. 2 on all files, taking on many of the responsibilities Mr. Clegg had handled as Deputy Prime Minister in the last government.

Mr. Cameron also reappointed Home Secretary Theresa May, Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond and Defence Secretary Michael Fallon to their posts. Other cabinet appointments were expected to be made on the weekend.

But he also confirmed that the EU referendum was a top priority for his government. "Yes, we will deliver that in-out referendum on our future in Europe," he said, standing outside the official Prime Minister's residence at 10 Downing St. in central London shortly after being asked by the Queen to form a new government.

Mr. Cameron may see status quo around the cabinet table as necessary to prepare both the Conservative Party and the country for the wrenching test of an EU referendum. A rancorous debate is expected around whether the benefits of being part of the common market of 500 million people outweigh the perceived drawbacks associated with decreased sovereignty and a flood of immigrants from Eastern Europe.

Business leaders have warned that the uncertainty about Britain's direction could threaten the country's slow but steady recovery from the 2008 financial crisis. The Conservatives' management of the economy, which showed the fastest pace of growth in the G-7 last year, was a key part of their pitch for re-election.

Mr. Cameron actually comes from the pro-European wing of the Conservative Party, and says he will campaign in favour of remaining in the union if he can first negotiate a better deal with Brussels. But the right wing of the Conservative Party has been opposed to EU integration since the Margaret Thatcher era, and – with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker 's office making it clear Friday that the principle of the free movement of labour was "non-negotiable" – it was unclear how any concessions Mr. Cameron could wring from Brussels would placate the Euroskeptics.

"The Tory party will be split [by the referendum] and fall into internecine civil war," predicted Alan Sked, a history professor at the London School of Economics and long-time advocate of pulling Britain out of the EU. Prof. Sked founded and later led the party now known as UKIP, though he left the party in 1997, saying it had become infected by Britain's far right.

The timing of an EU referendum could affect what happens next in Scottish politics too. The SNP, which has governed in Edinburgh since 2007, faces Scottish elections next year, and will have to lay out in its manifesto whether it will seek another independence vote if it is re-elected.

A "Brexit" referendum could bolster the SNP's case for independence. Scots are broadly more in favour of EU membership than the rest of the United Kingdom and Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who leads the SNP, has hinted that the possibility of Britain leaving the EU could create the conditions for a second referendum on Scottish independence after 55 per cent of Scots voted last year to stay in the U.K.

"There will only be another referendum when people in a Scottish parliament election vote for a proposition. There is no proposal on the table right now," Ms. Sturgeon said Friday.

She said the SNP MPs were headed to Westminster to fight for an end to the fiscal austerity that she said Scotland associated with Conservative rule. The Conservatives have promised to hold taxes steady and provide billions in additional funding for the National Health Service while simultaneously reducing the country's deficit. That funding gap in the Conservative manifesto led to accusations that the party plans to multibillion-dollar cuts to welfare and other social services.

There were accusations Friday that the Conservative victory had come at the expense of national unity.

Mr. Cameron promised during the campaign that he would introduce special votes in the House of Commons, where only English MPs could vote on laws that pertained only to England.

While that helped the Conservatives stave off the threat from UKIP in English constituencies – UKIP won only a single seat in Parliament despite claiming 13 per cent of the national vote – it further damaged the Conservative brand in other parts of the U.K. The Conservatives won just 12 seats outside England including one on Scotland, none in Northern Ireland, and 11 in Wales, where Labour won 23 of 40 seats.

Mr. Cameron said national unity would be one of the core missions of his second term as Prime Minister. He promised to deliver more devolution of authority to the Scottish government, but hinted again that England would get some of the same powers offered to Scotland.

"In Scotland, our plans are to create the strongest devolved government anywhere in the world with important powers over taxation, and no constitutional settlement will be complete if it did not offer also fairness to England," he said.

Forty of the 56 seats won by the SNP were constituencies Labour had held in the last Parliament, a wipe-out that cost Mr. Miliband his job. Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy, who was among the Labour MPs to lose their seats, said on Friday that the party had been caught between "two nationalisms," the SNP's Scottish nationalism and "an English nationalism stoked by David Cameron."

Labour's defeat was epitomized by the race in the Scottish constituency of Paisley and Renfrewshire South, where party heavyweight Danny Alexander was defeated by SNP candidate Mhairi Black, a 20-year-old University of Glasgow student. Ms. Black will become the youngest MP to take a seat in the House of Commons since the 17th century.

"The next government has a huge responsibility to bring our country together," Mr. Miliband posted on Twitter shortly before announcing his resignation. Like Mr. Clegg, he will continue to sit in the House of Commons as an MP.

Mr. Farage's resignation came after the UKIP leader lost a close race in the southeast England constituency of South Thanet, where he was beaten by Craig Mackinlay, a former UKIP leader who defected to the Conservatives. Mr. Farage followed through on a promise to resign if he lost the race, but also hinted he might not be gone for long.

"There will be a leadership election for the next leader of UKIP in September and I will consider over the course of this summer whether to put my name forward to do that job again," he said.