UK: Labour leader Miliband resigns after losing election

ANKARA

 Ed Miliband has stepped down as the main opposition leader after the Labour Party suffered a crushing election defeat in the UK's general election.

Speaking at Labour Party Headquarters on Friday, Miliband said he took "absolute and total responsibility" for Labour’s losses.

His party suffered electoral annihilation in Scotland at the hands of Scottish nationalists.

He said: “I am truly sorry I did not succeed."

"This party has come back before and will come back again.”

His comments came shortly before the center-right Conservative Party crossed the 326-seat threshold necessary to win the general election with a majority.

The left-wing separatist Scottish National Party, running on a left-of-Labour and anti-austerity platform, won 56 of the 59 available seats in Labor's traditional Scottish heartland.

Labour's shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander, who was also in charge of Labour general election campaign, lost his seat to 20-year-old SNP student Mhairi Black, who is yet to take her final university exam.

Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy also lost his seat to the SNP.

Kirkcaldy, the seat of former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who was not running for re-election, was also swallowed by the SNP juggernaut.

The swings were sensational as Labour lost 40 of the 41 Scottish seats they won in 2010.

The largest swing in any seat in the 2010 general election was 21.9 percent but, by 03.00GMT, the SNP had broken the figure 12 fold, with Labour-seat Glenrothes going to the SNP by virtue of a titanic 34.9 percent swing.

Shadow Labour chancellor Ed Balls also lost his marginal seat in the north of England.

“Defeats are hard, but we’re a party that will never stop fighting for the working people of this country,” Miliband said in a statement before his resignation speech.

He appointed deputy Labour leader Harriet Harman to head the party until internal leadership elections are held.

He was the third opposition party leader to stand down within an hour, after centrist Liberal Democrats leader Nick Clegg and right-wing UKIP leader Nigel Farage both stepped down following similarly disappointing poll results.