Today (July 4th) citizens of United Kingdom go to polls to vote in parliamentary elections!
British parliament is bicameral and has two chambers:
Upper House of Lords, with non-fixed (currently 783) number of seats, mostly appointed for life. It has limited powers nowadays and we won't cover it here.
Lower House of Commons, which consists of 650 Members of Parliament or MPs (326 needed for majority), who are elected for a five-year term, using first-past-the-post system. Read more here.
Turnout in last (2019) elections was 67.3%.
Relevant parties taking part in the elections are:
| Name | Leadership | Position | 2019 result | Recent polling | Seats (projection) | Seats (exit poll) | Seats (2019) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labour | Sir Keir Starmer | centre-left (socdem) | 31.1% | 37-41% | 418-484 | TBA | (202) |
| Conservatives | Rishi Sunak | right (conservative liberal) | 43.6% | 19-23% | 64-126 | TBA | (365) |
| Lib Dems | Sir Edward Davey | centre (social liberal, Europeanist) | 1.7% | 10-11% | 52-72 | TBA | (11) |
| Scottish National Party (SNP) | John Swinney | centre-left (Scottish interests, socdem) | 7.4% | 2-4% | 10-23 | TBA | (48) |
| Reform UK | Nigel Farage | right-wing (anti-EU, pro-Russia) | new | 15-18% | 1-7 | TBA | (-) |
| Plaid Cymru | Rhun ap Iorwerth | left (Welsh interests) | 0.6% | 2-4 | TBA | (4) | |
| Greens | dual | left-wing (green progressive) | 0.2% | 6-9% | 1-4 | TBA | (1) |
| Sinn Féin | Mary Lou McDonald | left (Irish nationalist, demsoc) | 1.1% | TBA | (7) | ||
| Democratic Unionists (DUP) | Gavin Robinson | right (NI Protestant interests, conservative) | 1.2% | TBA | (8) | ||
| Social Democratic & Labour (SDLP) | Colum Eastwood | centre-left (Irish nationalist, socdem) | 0.3% | TBA | (2) | ||
| Alliance | Naomi Long | centre (NI nonsectarian, liberal) | 0.2% | TBA | (1) |
Polls will close on 22:00 local time (GMT).
Further reading
UK election is nearing its end (BBC)
Britons vote in election expected to deliver Labour landslide (Reuters)
Live feeds
Feel free to correct or add anything!
https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1dv52p0/2024_united_kingdom_general_election/
by pothkan
10 comments
anywhere where i can follow live results in a television like format from belgium? bbc i get here just broadcasts wimbledon
The expected votes to seats conversions just seem like a joke
How come there is such a strong shift to the left in the UK compared to the rest of Europe which is doing the opposite?
Shouldn’t the flair be red?
What are the chances that Ed Davey’s troll campaign will land the LibDems with more seats than the Tories?
Who do you think will win?
What do the 2019 percentages mean? It looks like you used overall vote share, but why are the Lib Dems on 1,7% (they got 11.6%) and SNP on 7.4% (they got 3.0%). The Greens also got 2.7%, why have you written 0.2%? Also Reform isn’t a ‘new’ party, it’s a rebranded party (was the Brexit Party, got 2.0% in 2019).
So confused where you got the 2019 results..?
disappointed with Count Binhead not running for the top job
What I found remarkable about the election campaigns in Britain is that I never saw any public events on central town squares or so. Whenever politicians appeared in campaign events, these always seemed to be in a controlled and closed environment like a factory hall speaking to workers or in a barn speaking to farmers.
While in many countries, public events in the streets are very common like in Germany or also in Italy it’s very common to see politicians on the piazza.
Alright, Brits. Today’s the day.