The2024 general election resulted in alandslide victory for theLabour Party led byKeir Starmer, but with the smallest share of the electoral vote of any majority government since record-keeping of the popular vote beganin 1830. The combined vote share for Labour and the Conservatives reached a record low, with smaller parties doing well. Labour returned to being the largest party in Scotland and remained so in Wales. The election was noted as the most disproportionate in modern British history,[2] mainly as a result of thefirst-past-the-post voting system.[3][4][5][6]
Reform UK, led byNigel Farage, placed third in the share of the vote in the 2024 election and had MPs elected to the Commons for the first time.[9] Meanwhile, theLiberal Democrats, led byEd Davey, made significant gains especially in seat terms to reach their highest number of seats since (as their predecessorLiberal Party) the 1920s (and highest since the merger with theSDP). TheGreen Party of England and Wales also won a record number of votes and seats alongside a number of independent MPs.[7] TheScottish National Party (SNP) lost around three-quarters of its seats.[10]
The2025 United Kingdom local elections led to a rise in the number of seats held by smaller parties at the expense of the Conservatives and Labour. On 2 September 2025,Zack Polanski waselected as leader of the Green Party of England and Wales in a landslide, with 85% of the vote share,[18] succeedingCarla Denyer andAdrian Ramsay in that position. The party's membership figures doubled, from around 70,000 to over 140,000, overtaking the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives.[19]
On 24 February 2025, incumbent Labour MP forRuncorn and Helsby,Mike Amesbury, was sentenced to 10 weeks in prison for assault which was reduced to a suspended sentence, however, a recall petition was held with Amesbury resigning on 17 March 2025.[20][21][22] The by-election was characterised in the media as a fight between Labour and Reform UK.[23] Labour would select Karen Shore, a former teacher and deputy leader ofCheshire West and Chester Council, as their candidate, as Reform UK pickedSarah Pochin, a formerCheshire East Conservative Party councillor before being expelled from the party in 2020.[24][25] Meanwhile minor candidates included the Conservatives standing Sean Houlston, aNational Federation of Builders executive and former candidate for the neighbouring seat ofWidnes and Halewood, and the Greens picked Chris Copeman, a local councillor inHelsby as their candidate.[26][27] Other candidates included Michael Williams as an independent, Danny Clarke for theLiberal Party, and Jason Hughes forVolt UK.[28][29][30]
Pochin and Reform UK won the by-election, overturning Labour's 14,696-vote majority from the last general election with Pochin being the first non-Labour MP to hold the seat in 50 years.[31][32] The initial vote count saw Pochin win with just 4 votes, which was extended to 6 votes following a Labour requested recount.[33] It was theclosest by-election result since at least the Second World War, the previous narrowest being a majority of 57. The results were seen as a major upset for Reform UK as Labour pinning their defeat on cuts to thewinter fuel payment.[34][35]
a resident at an address in the United Kingdom (or a British citizen living abroad),and
not legally excluded from voting (for example a convicted person detained in prison or a mental hospital, or unlawfully at large if they would otherwise have been detained, or a person found guilty of certain corrupt or illegal practices, or a sitting Member of the House of Lords)
Individuals must beregistered to vote by midnight twelve working days before polling day. Anyone who qualifies as ananonymous elector has approximately five working days before polling day to register. A person who has two homes (such as a university student who has a term-time address and lives at home during holidays) may be able to register to vote at both addresses as long as they are not in the same electoral area, but can only vote in one constituency at the general election. In July 2025, the government announced plans to reduce thevoting age to 16 before the next general election.[37] Extending the vote to 16- and 17-year-olds would add well over a million potential voters across England and Northern Ireland.[38] Analysts found that this would expand voter participation, but the additional votes would represent only a small share of the national electorate.[39]
Under theDissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022, theprime minister has the power to request themonarch call an election at any time during the five-year length of a parliamentary session. If the prime minister chooses not to do this, then parliament is automatically dissolved five years after the day it first met,[40] and a general election is held 25 working days after dissolution.[41] Parliament first met on 9 July 2024,[42][43][44] meaning that unless Parliament is dissolved earlier it will be automatically dissolved on 9 July 2029, and the latest an election could be held is 15 August 2029.[45]
Opinion polling for the next United Kingdom general election is being carried out continually by various organisations to gauge voting intention. Most of the polling companies listed are members of theBritish Polling Council (BPC) and abide by its disclosure rules. The dates for these opinion polls range from the 2024 general election on 4 July to the present day.
^Sinn Féin are an all-Ireland political party with anabstentionist stance from the UK Parliament. McDonald is aTD (Republic of Ireland MP).Michelle O'Neill leads Sinn Féin in Northern Ireland.
^Ellie Chowns leads the Greens in the House of Commons.
^Sorcha Eastwood is the sole Alliance Party MP in the House of Commons.
^Robin Swann is the sole Ulster Unionist Party MP in the House of Commons.
^The official Parliament list of parties has onlyZarah Sultana as a member of Your Party; three other MPs (Shockat Adam,Jeremy Corbyn,Ayoub Khan) are members of the party but sit in parliament as part of the Independent Alliance.
^Some media outlets, such asBBC News, listed Labour's total as 412, by including the Speaker (who, to demonstrate his neutrality, had resigned his Labour Party membership on taking office).
^abcdThe Speaker and three deputy speakers by convention comprise two MPs from the government side and two from the opposition side. They do not vote in House of Commons divisions and exercise only acasting vote.[16]
^abSinn Féin's seven MPs follow a policy ofabstentionism. They do not swear into the House of Commons, and do not take part in its formal processes. As a result, they are not able to sit or vote in the House of Commons.[15]
^Total number of MPs on the government side minus MPs on the opposition side. The government side comprises all Labour MPs plus the Speaker (as he was originally a Labour MP). The opposition side comprises all other MPs.
^Total number of voting MPs on the government side minus voting MPs on the opposition side.
^Wheeler, Brian (2 September 2025)."Zack Polanski elected leader of the Green Party".BBC News.Archived from the original on 2 September 2025. Retrieved2 September 2025.Thousands of new members joined the party during the leadership campaign, taking its membership to 68,500.
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