General Election 2017: Decision day as voters head to the polls

The outcome will decide the future of almost every aspect of British life, with Brexit negotiations due to start in just 11 days time.

The West Midlands has been one of the country’s key battlegrounds in the run up to polling day, with the Tories having targeted at least five Labour seats in the Black Country.

Wolverhampton South West, Dudley North, Walsall North, Wolverhampton North East and Walsall North have all been earmarked as potential Tory gains by Conservative campaign headquarters.

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Labour was expected to hold on to most of its other Black Country seats, while the Tories were confident of retaining their Staffordshire strongholds.

Opinion polls narrowed further as the campaign entered its final hours, with some pollsters putting Labour within a point of the Conservatives as polling booths opening this morning.

But the Tories have rubbished the polls. Chancellor Philip Hammond said they ‘were not worth the paper they are printed on’ while Conservative Party Chairman Patrick McLoughlin argued they would galvanise Tory supporters to get out and vote.

Labour is unlikely to win an overall majority, but could seize power by doing a deal with the Scottish Nationalists under Nicola Sturgeon.

Last night Prime Minister Theresa May said: “A vote for Conservative candidates in the Black Country and Staffordshire will strengthen my hand to get the best deal in the Brexit negotiations.”

Labour’s deputy leader Tom Watson said his party had gained momentum in the election campaign and that the result was now in the hands of voters. Mr Watson had said Labour had a ‘mountain to climb’ to win the election.

He added last night: “I would say we have got to base camp. I don’t know whether we will get to the summit or not. That is down to the voters.”

It follows a bitter campaign that saw Labour attack the Tories over police cuts and social care policy, with the Conservatives criticising Mr Corbyn’s alleged links to the IRA and branding him unfit to lead the country.

Mrs May, who called the snap election on April 18, told the Express & Star: “A vote for any other party in these elections risks putting Jeremy Corbyn into Downing Street, at the head of a coalition of chaos made up of the minor parties.”

On the last day of campaigning yesterday, Mr Corbyn was forced to replace his gaffe-prone ally Diane Abbott after she succumbed to an unspecified illness.

She has been ‘temporarily replaced’ as shadow Foreign Secretary by Lyn Brown, who previously quit the front bench, complaining that Mr Corbyn’s leadership was ‘untenable’.

In another blow, Shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer praised Theresa May’s anti-terror legislation – only to discover that Jeremy Corbyn had failed to support it.

Bookmakers are listing Mrs May as 1-5 to still be Prime Minister on Friday morning, with Mr Corbyn 4-1.