Voters were choosing a new Parliament for the United Kingdom on Thursday in an election that is expected to produce an ambiguous result, a period of frantic political horse-trading and a bout of national soul-searching.

Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservatives and Ed Miliband's Labour Party are running neck and neck, and neither looks able to win a majority of Parliament's 650 seats.

Many voters are turning elsewhere - chiefly to the separatist Scottish National Party, which will dominate north of the border, and the anti-immigrant UK Independence Party. UKIP is third in opinion polls but Britain's electoral system means it can win at most only a handful of seats. Britain's ruling Conservatives and the opposition Labour Party were tied with support at 33 percent each, according to a Populus opinion poll published on Thursday.