Elections
How do elections work ?
Elections include community, town, county, city, regional, general and other elections including Mayoral and police commissioners elections. Anyone can stand in elections either representing a party as an independent. Many people have no understanding how elections work and wonder how poor decisions are made which affect them and feel unable to engage with the political process. They become increasingly frustrated with what they see are illogical decisions made which affect their lives and the lives of those around them. If only they understood the political process. We can help you not only understand how elections work, we can put you in a position to get elected at whatever level of office you choose to contest.
In a general election, the U.K. is divided into 650 local areas called parliamentary constituencies, each of which is represented by one member of parliament (MP) in the House of Commons.
All British, Irish or qualifying Commonwealth citizens resident in the country and aged 18-years-old or over will be able to vote. Britons living abroad — who have been registered to vote in the U.K. in the last 15 years — will also be able to cast their ballot.
The total number of registered U.K. voters at the end of December 2018 was roughly 46 million, according to the most recent data available from the Office for National Statistics.
Polling stations open between 7:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. London time on Thursday — but some may have already cast their ballot in advance by post.
General elections in Britain operate on a first-past-the-post basis. This means the political candidate that receives the most votes in each constituency will win a seat in parliament.
What’s first-past-the-post?
Advocates of first-past-the-post argue it is a simple and familiar process which usually delivers a one-party government. This allows the elected party to form an executive and implement their plans over the next five years.
However, this voting system is not without its critics. That’s because, in most constituencies, the majority of Britons typically end up voting against the winning candidate rather than for them.
In fact, of the 21 general elections held between 1935 and 2017, the majority of voters only voted for parties that formed the government on two separate occasions, according to the Electoral Reform Society.
We would argue the system prevents smaller parties like us from receiving fair representation in Parliament.
When will we know the result?
An exit poll published when polls close at 10:00 p.m. on Thursday usually gives a reliable indication of how the election has gone.
In 2017, this poll correctly called that Theresa May’s Conservative Party had fallen short of an expected parliamentary majority.
What happens next?
A clear exit poll at 10:00 p.m., followed by official constituency results thereafter, might be enough to prompt opposition party leaders to concede to the winner — or the winner may declare victory.
However, if the result is too close to call, parties are likely to wait until almost every ballot has been counted.
What if there’s a hung parliament ?
If no party can secure a parliamentary majority, the result is known as a hung parliament.
In the U.K., a party must secure at least 326 seats from a total of 650 in the House of Commons to form a parliamentary majority. The winning threshold is slightly lower in practice because lawmakers from Northern Ireland’s Sinn Fein party do not attend Parliament.
If, as in 2017, the election produces another hung parliament, parties may try to form an alliance with one another to help them win votes in Parliament.
As the incumbent, Conservative Party leader Boris Johnson would get first try to form an executive. He may decide to negotiate with another party or parties to build a coalition — such as in 2010, when the Conservatives entered government alongside the Liberal Democrats.
Or, he may follow in the footsteps of his predecessor and seek to form a confidence and supply agreement. May returned to Downing Street in June 2017 after reaching this type of deal with Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).
Or, Johnson may have choose to resign, typically after failing to build a coalition and recommend the leader of the largest opposition party be invited to form a government.
As is typical with parties still in campaign mode, they generally suggest they would not be willing to work together to form a government.
In the U.K., a party must secure at least 326 seats from a total of 650 in the House of Commons to form a parliamentary majority. The winning threshold is slightly lower in practice because lawmakers from Northern Ireland’s Sinn Fein party do not attend Parliament.
If, as in 2017, the election produces another hung parliament, parties may try to form an alliance with one another to help them win votes in Parliament.
As the incumbent, Conservative Party leader Rishi Sunak would get first try to form an executive. He may decide to negotiate with another party or parties to build a coalition — such as in 2010, when the Conservatives entered government alongside the Liberal Democrats.
Or, he may follow in the footsteps of Theresa May and seek to form a confidence and supply agreement. May returned to Downing Street in June 2017 after reaching this type of deal with Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).
Or, Sunak may choose to resign, typically after failing to build a coalition and recommend the leader of the largest opposition party be invited to form a government.
2019 elections
The 2019 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 12 December 2019 to elect members of the House of Commons. The Conservative Party won a landslide victory with a majority of 80 seats,[n 5] a net gain of 48, on 43.6% of the popular vote, the highest percentage for any party since the 1979 United Kingdom general election.[3]
Having failed to obtain a majority at the 2017 United Kingdom general election, the Conservative Party governed in minority with the support of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). This led to the resignation of Prime Minister Theresa May with Boris Johnson becoming Conservative leader and Prime Minister in July 2019. Johnson could not persuade Parliament to approve a revised Brexit withdrawal agreement by the end of October, and chose to call for a snap election, which the House of Commons supported under the Early Parliamentary General Election Act 2019.[4] Opinion polls showed a firm lead for the Conservatives against the opposition Labour Party throughout the campaign.[5]
The Conservatives won 365 seats, their highest number and proportion since 1987, and recorded their highest share of the popular vote since 1979; many of their gains were made in long-held Labour seats, dubbed the red wall, which had voted strongly for Leave in the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum. Labour won 202 seats, its lowest number and proportion since 1935.[6][7][8] The Scottish National Party (SNP) made a net gain of 13 seats with 45% of the vote in Scotland, winning 48 of the 59 seats there.[9] The Liberal Democrats improved their vote share to 11.6% but won only 11 seats, a net loss of one since the last election.[10] The DUP won a plurality of seats in Northern Ireland. The Social Democratic and Labour Party and the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland regained parliamentary representation as the DUP lost seats.
The election result gave Johnson the mandate he sought from the electorate to formally implement the Exit Day of the Withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union on 31 January 2020 and repeal the European Communities Act 1972, thereby ending hopes of the Remain movement and those opposed to Brexit. Labour’s defeat led to Jeremy Corbyn announcing his intention to resign, triggering a leadership election that was won by Keir Starmer.[8][11] For the Liberal Democrats leader Jo Swinson, the loss of her constituency seat in East Dunbartonshire disqualified her as party leader under the party’s rules, triggering a leadership election,[10] which was won by Ed Davey.[12] Jane Dodds, the party’s leader in Wales, was also unseated in Brecon and Radnorshire.[13] In Northern Ireland, Irish nationalist MPs outnumbered unionists for the first time, although the unionist popular vote remained higher at 43.1%, and the seven Sinn Féin MPs did not take their seats due to their tradition of abstentionism.
2024 elections
On 17 December 2024, it will be five years since parliament convened after the last UK general election in 2019. If this parliament has not been formally dissolved by then, dissolution would at that point become automatic. A general election would follow after 25 working days. Strictly speaking, the last possible date for the next UK general election is therefore Tuesday 28 January 2025.
In practice, the next election is unlikely to take place then. For one thing, UK elections traditionally occur on Thursdays, though this is only a convention observed since 1935. (Five of the six elections immediately before 1935 took place on other days; so, in principle, could the next one.) Nevertheless, the fact remains that the next general election may well be as much as 14 months away.
No one who watched the chancellor’s autumn statement on the economy this week could doubt that the two major parties are now in full general election mode. Jeremy Hunt’s announcements were a classic pre-election “live now, pay later” package aimed at seducing voters and embarrassing the opposition. There is likely to be more in the budget next March. There were big upfront tax cuts for businesses and workers. But these are a deliberate hospital pass to a potential Labour government, since the tax cuts would be financed by post-election spending cuts wholly unmentioned by the chancellor. Yet Labour is now in an election battle formation of its own too.
The shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, signalled a broader charge this week, based less on Mr Hunt’s announcements than 13 years of Conservative economic management. The questions that people will ask at the next election are simple, she concluded. Do they feel better off after 13 years? Do health, education and policing work better?
Amid the shoutiness of the Commons, the rival pitches were familiar. Better the devil you know from Mr Hunt. Time for a change with Ms Reeves. Giveaways from the Tories. The long, long night is over from Labour. The election battleground is getting more traditional too: a Conservative party that aims to shrink the state and cut taxes against a Labour party that will hopefully prioritise the protection and strengthening of the public services.
The choice is extremely clear. But do we need another 14 months of this argument conducted in these terms? Absolutely not. Politics is already in low enough repute without a year or more of the parties endlessly trading attack lines in this way. This would do nothing to repair a lack of trust that will haunt and hobble every future government until the problem is properly addressed.
Britain should have an early general election, not a late one. We should not be forced to wait until 2025 either. The 2024 election should be in spring, not autumn. This is not just because Britain needs a new government, although it does, but because voters should not be condemned to the year-long election campaign that the events of this week have so obviously signalled. The country seems to know its own mind. It will soon be time to bring it on, for all our sakes.