Labour Gains Landslide Victory With Little Increase in Support

Britain's incoming Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his wife Victoria wave as they pose on the steps of 10 Downing Street in London on July 5, 2024. (Justin Tallis/AFP via Getty Images)

Analysis

Claiming the biggest majority since 1997, with all but one seat declared on Friday, Labour has won 412 of 650 seats in Parliament.

But while the party won almost two-thirds of seats, the overall vote share was only around one-third, the lowest ever vote share for a majority-winning party since 1900.

Meanwhile, Reform UK and the Green Party only managed to secure a handful of seats with larger vote shares.

Having foreseen the result, Reform leader Nigel Farage has called for electoral change in the run-up to polling day.

The Liberal Democrats have been an outlier in this election, with its shares of votes and seats broadly lined up, but the party has also long advocated for proportional representation which it says would make “seats won match votes cast” and facilitate “politicians having to work together.”

The UK’s Westminster elections are held under the first-past-the-post system, in which voters of each constituency cast a single vote toward a preferred candidate, and the candidate with the most votes would win, without having to secure over 50 percent of the votes.

The system is simpler and is more likely to produce strong single-party governments, but critics say it leads to wasted votes, where those cast for a losing candidate in a constituency are effectively discounted, encourages tactical voting, and prevents smaller parties from winning seats in Parliament.

As many disgruntled former Tory voters turn to Reform and other parties including Labour, Labour has won 63 percent of constituencies—the party’s third best result—with only 33.8 percent of the vote share, which is the lowest ever vote share for a majority-winning party.

The Conservative Party saw record low levels in both the number of seats and vote share, holding on to 18.6 percent of seats with 23.7 percent of vote share.

Outgoing Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and wife Akshata Murty leave 10 Downing Street following Labour's landslide election victory in London on July 5, 2024. (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

Green only managed to secure four, or 0.6 percent of seats, with 6.8 percent of the vote.

Reform bagged 14 percent of votes across the country, but the votes only translated into five seats in Parliament, 0.8 percent of all seats.

The start-up party, which was formerly the Brexit Party, also came in second in almost 100 constituencies, and third in some others.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage gives a victory speech at Clacton Leisure Centre in Clacton, Essex, during the count for the 2024 General Election on July 5, 2024. (Joe Giddens/PA Wire)

In the most stunning Tory loss on Friday, former Prime Minister Liz Truss, who had an overwhelming majority in 2019, lost to Labour by just 630 votes, while voters were largely swayed by Reform and Tory-allied independent candidate James Bagge.

The Lib Dems, on the other hand, had similar levels of seats and votes, becoming the third largest party with 71 MPs (11 percent), having won 12 percent of votes.

PA Media contributed to this report.