The 2019 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 12 December 2019. It resulted in the
Conservative Party receiving a
landslide majority of 80 seats. The Conservatives made a net gain of 48 seats and won 43.6% of the popular vote – the highest percentage for any party since
1979
Events
January
* January 1
** United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim heralds the start of the '' International Year of the Child''. Many musicians donate to the '' Music for UNICEF Concert'' fund, among them ABBA, who write the so ...
.
Having failed to obtain a majority in the
2017 general election, the Conservative Party had faced
prolonged parliamentary deadlock over Brexit while it governed in
minority with the
support of the
Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). This situation led to the resignation of the
Prime Minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister i ...
,
Theresa May
Theresa Mary May, Lady May (; née Brasier; born 1 October 1956) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2016 to 2019. She previously served in David Cameron's cabi ...
, and the
selection
Selection may refer to:
Science
* Selection (biology), also called natural selection, selection in evolution
** Sex selection, in genetics
** Mate selection, in mating
** Sexual selection in humans, in human sexuality
** Human mating strateg ...
of
Boris Johnson
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (; born 19 June 1964) is a British politician, writer and journalist who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022. He previously served as F ...
as
Conservative leader and Prime Minister in July 2019. Johnson could not induce Parliament to approve a revised
withdrawal agreement by the end of October, and chose to call for a
snap election
A snap election is an election that is called earlier than the one that has been scheduled.
Generally, a snap election in a parliamentary system (the dissolution of parliament) is called to capitalize on an unusual electoral opportunity or to ...
, which the House of Commons supported via the
Early Parliamentary General Election Act 2019
The Early Parliamentary General Election Act 2019 (c. 29) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that made legal provision for the holding of the 2019 United Kingdom general election on 12 December 2019.
The Act was fast-tracked in ...
.
Opinion polls
An opinion poll, often simply referred to as a survey or a poll (although strictly a poll is an actual election) is a human research survey of public opinion from a particular sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions ...
up to polling day showed a firm lead for the Conservatives against the
Labour Party throughout the campaign.
The Conservatives won 365 seats, their highest number and proportion of seats since
1987
File:1987 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes after leaving the Port of Zeebrugge in Belgium, killing 193; Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashes after takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airport, ...
, and recorded their highest share of the popular vote since
1979
Events
January
* January 1
** United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim heralds the start of the '' International Year of the Child''. Many musicians donate to the '' Music for UNICEF Concert'' fund, among them ABBA, who write the so ...
; many of their gains were made in long-held Labour seats, dubbed the '
red wall', which had registered a strong 'Leave' vote in the
2016 EU referendum. Labour won 202 seats, its lowest number and proportion of seats since
1935.
The
Scottish National Party (SNP) made a net gain of 13 seats and won 3.9% of the UK vote (translating to 45% of the popular vote in Scotland), resulting in
48 out of 59 seats won in Scotland.
The
Liberal Democrats improved their vote share to 11.6% but won only 11 seats, a net loss of one since the last election.
The DUP won a
plurality of seats in Northern Ireland. There, the
SDLP
The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) ( ga, Páirtí Sóisialta Daonlathach an Lucht Oibre) is a social-democratic and Irish nationalist political party in Northern Ireland. The SDLP currently has eight members in the Northern Irela ...
and
Alliance
An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
regained parliamentary representation as the DUP lost seats.
The election result gave Johnson the mandate he sought from the electorate to formally implement the
UK’s departure from the European Union on 31 January 2020 and repeal the
European Communities Act 1972, thereby ending hopes of the
Remain movement of overturning the result of the 2016 referendum. Labour's defeat led to
Jeremy Corbyn
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (; born 26 May 1949) is a British politician who served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party from 2015 to 2020. On the political left of the Labour Party, Corbyn describes himself as a socialist ...
conceding defeat and announcing his intention to resign, triggering a
leadership election
A leadership election is a political contest held in various countries by which the members of a political party determine who will be the leader of their party.
Generally, any political party can determine its own rules governing how and when a l ...
won by
Keir Starmer
Sir Keir Rodney Starmer (; born 2 September 1962) is a British politician and barrister who has served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party since 2020. He has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Holborn and St Pancras s ...
.
For Liberal Democrat leader
Jo Swinson
Joanne Kate Swinson (born 5 February 1980) is a former British Liberal Democrat politician who was Leader of the Liberal Democrats from 22 July to 13 December 2019. She was the first woman and the youngest person to hold the position, as well ...
, the loss of her
constituency seat compelled her to resign as well, triggering a
leadership election
A leadership election is a political contest held in various countries by which the members of a political party determine who will be the leader of their party.
Generally, any political party can determine its own rules governing how and when a l ...
,
which was won by
Ed Davey
Sir Edward Jonathan Davey (born 25 December 1965) is a British politician who has served as Leader of the Liberal Democrats since 2020. He served in the Cameron–Clegg coalition as Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change from 2012 ...
. The party's leader in
Wales
Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...
,
Jane Dodds
Jane Dodds MS (born 13 September 1963) is a Welsh politician who has served as Leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats since 2017. She was elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Brecon and Radnorshire at the seat's 2019 by-election, but ...
, was also
unseated. For the SNP leader,
Nicola Sturgeon, her party's landslide victory in Scotland led to renewed calls for a
second independence referendum.
In Northern Ireland,
nationalist
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: Th ...
MPs outnumbered
unionist ones for the first time, although the unionist popular vote remained higher (43.1%).
Background
In July 2016,
Theresa May
Theresa Mary May, Lady May (; née Brasier; born 1 October 1956) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2016 to 2019. She previously served in David Cameron's cabi ...
became
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
The prime minister of the United Kingdom is the head of government of the United Kingdom. The prime minister advises the sovereign on the exercise of much of the royal prerogative, chairs the Cabinet and selects its ministers. As modern ...
, having taken over from
David Cameron (who had resigned in the wake of the 2016
Brexit referendum). Her party the Conservative and Unionist Party had governed the UK since the
2010 general election, initially in coalition with the Liberal Democrats and following the
2015 general election, alone with a small majority. In the
2017 general election, May lost her majority but was able to resume office as a result of a
confidence and supply
In a parliamentary democracy based on the Westminster system, confidence and supply are required for a ruling cabinet to retain power in the lower house.
A confidence-and-supply agreement is one whereby a party or independent members of par ...
agreement with Northern Ireland's
Democratic Unionist Party. In the face of opposition from the DUP and Conservative
back-benchers, the
second May ministry
The second May ministry was formed on 11 June 2017 after Theresa May returned to office following the June 2017 snap general election. The election resulted in a hung parliament with the Conservative Party losing its governing majority in the ...
was unable to pass its
Brexit withdrawal agreement
The Brexit withdrawal agreement, officially titled Agreement on the withdrawal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from the European Union and the European Atomic Energy Community, is a treaty between the European Uni ...
by 29 March 2019, so some political commentators considered that an early
United Kingdom general election
This is a list of United Kingdom general elections (elections for the UK House of Commons) since the first in 1802. The members of the 1801–1802 Parliament had been elected to the former Parliament of Great Britain and Parliament of Ireland ...
was likely. The opposition
Labour Party called for a January
2019 vote of confidence in the May ministry
On 15 January 2019, a motion of no confidence in the government of Theresa May was tabled in the British House of Commons. On 16 January, the House rejected the motion by a vote of 325 to 306.
The motion was laid by Jeremy Corbyn, the Leader of ...
, but the motion failed. May resigned following her party's poor performance in the
2019 European Parliament election
The 2019 European Parliament election was held between 23 and 26 May 2019, the ninth parliamentary election since the first direct elections in 1979. A total of 751 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) represent more than 512 million peop ...
, during the first extension granted by the European Union for negotiations on the withdrawal agreement.
Boris Johnson
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (; born 19 June 1964) is a British politician, writer and journalist who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022. He previously served as F ...
won the
2019 Conservative Party leadership election
The 2019 Conservative Party leadership election was triggered when Theresa May announced on 24 May 2019 that she would resign as leader of the Conservative Party on 7 June and as prime minister of the United Kingdom once a successor had been el ...
and became Prime Minister on 24 July 2019. Along with attempting to revise the withdrawal agreement arranged by his predecessor's negotiations, Johnson made three attempts to hold a snap election under the process defined in the
Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011
The Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 (c. 14) (FTPA) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that for the first time set in legislation a default fixed election date for a general election to the Westminster parliament. Since the repeal ...
, which requires a two-thirds
supermajority in order for an election to take place.
All three attempts to call an election failed to gain support: Parliament insisted that Johnson "take a
no-deal Brexit
A no-deal Brexit (also called clean break BrexitBBC. (2019)''Brexit: Jargon-busting guide to the key terms'' (BBC) Retrieved 29 March 2019.) was the potential withdrawal of the UK from the European Union (EU) without a withdrawa ...
off the table first" and secure a negotiated Withdrawal Agreement, expressed in particular by its enactment against his will of the
European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 2) Act 2019 (often called the "Benn Act", after Labour MP
Hilary Benn
Hilary James Wedgwood Benn (born 26 November 1953) is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Leeds Central since a by-election in 1999. He served in the Cabinet from 2003 to 2010, under both Tony Bl ...
, who introduced the bill). After failing to pass a revised deal before the first extension's deadline of 31 October 2019, Johnson agreed to a second extension on negotiations with the EU and finally secured a
revised Withdrawal Agreement. Parliament agreed to an election through a motion proposed by the Liberal Democrats and Scottish National Party on 28 October. The
Early Parliamentary General Election Act 2019
The Early Parliamentary General Election Act 2019 (c. 29) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that made legal provision for the holding of the 2019 United Kingdom general election on 12 December 2019.
The Act was fast-tracked in ...
(EPGEA) was passed in the Commons by 438 votes to 20; an attempt to pass an amendment by opposition parties for the election to be held on 9 December failed by 315 votes to 295.
[; ] The House of Lords followed suit on 30 October, with Royal Assent made the day after for the ratification of the EPGEA.
Date of the election
The deadline for candidate nominations was 14 November 2019, with political campaigning for four weeks until polling day on 12 December. On the day of the election, polling stations across the country were open from 7 am, and closed at 10 pm. The date chosen for the 2019 general election made it the first to be held in December since
1923
Events
January–February
* January 9 – Lithuania begins the Klaipėda Revolt to annex the Klaipėda Region (Memel Territory).
* January 11 – Despite strong British protests, troops from France and Belgium occupy the Ruhr area, t ...
.
Voting eligibility
Individuals eligible to vote had to be
registered to vote by midnight on 26 November. To be eligible to vote, individuals had to be aged 18 or over; residing as an Irish or Commonwealth citizen at an address in the United Kingdom, or a British citizen overseas who registered to vote in the last 15 years; and not legally excluded (on grounds of detainment in prison, a mental hospital, or on the run from law enforcement) or disqualified from voting. Anyone who qualified as an
anonymous elector
An anonymous elector is generally a registered voter whose safety would be at risk if their details were available on a public electoral register.
Australia
In Australia, a voter anonymously registered is known as a silent elector. To be a silent ...
had until midnight on 6 December to register.
Timetable
Contesting political parties and candidates
Most candidates are representatives of a
political party
A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or p ...
, which must be registered with the Electoral Commission's Register. Those who do not belong to one must use the label "Independent" or none. In the 2019 election 3,415 candidates stood: 206 being independents, the rest representing one of 68 political parties.
Great Britain
As outlined in text above, Conservatives had been governing in coalition or on their own since 2010 and led by
Boris Johnson
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (; born 19 June 1964) is a British politician, writer and journalist who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022. He previously served as F ...
since July 2019.
Jeremy Corbyn
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (; born 26 May 1949) is a British politician who served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party from 2015 to 2020. On the political left of the Labour Party, Corbyn describes himself as a socialist ...
had been Labour Party leader since 2015 and was the first Labour leader since
Tony Blair
Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of th ...
to contest consecutive general elections, and the first since
Neil Kinnock
Neil Gordon Kinnock, Baron Kinnock (born 28 March 1942) is a British former politician. As a member of the Labour Party, he served as a Member of Parliament from 1970 until 1995, first for Bedwellty and then for Islwyn. He was the Leader of ...
to do so after losing the first. One other party, the Liberal Democrats, contested seats across Great Britain. They were led by
Tim Farron
Timothy James Farron (born 27 May 1970) is a British politician who served as Leader of the Liberal Democrats from 2015 to 2017. He has also served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Westmorland and Lonsdale since 2005, before which he worked in ...
at the 2017 election, before he was replaced by
Vince Cable
Sir John Vincent Cable (born 9 May 1943) is a British politician who was Leader of the Liberal Democrats from 2017 to 2019. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Twickenham from 1997 to 2015 and from 2017 to 2019. He also served in the Cabinet as ...
. Cable was
succeeded by
Jo Swinson
Joanne Kate Swinson (born 5 February 1980) is a former British Liberal Democrat politician who was Leader of the Liberal Democrats from 22 July to 13 December 2019. She was the first woman and the youngest person to hold the position, as well ...
in July 2019.
[; ] The
Brexit Party
Reform UK is a right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. It was founded with support from Nigel Farage in November 2018 as the Brexit Party, advocating hard Euroscepticism and a no-deal Brexit, and was briefly a significant ...
contested somewhat under half the seats. It was founded in early 2019 by
Nigel Farage
Nigel Paul Farage (; born 3 April 1964) is a British broadcaster and former politician who was Leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) from 2006 to 2009 and 2010 to 2016 and Leader of the Brexit Party (renamed Reform UK in 2021) from 2 ...
, former leader of the
UK Independence Party
The UK Independence Party (UKIP; ) is a Eurosceptic, right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. The party reached its greatest level of success in the mid-2010s, when it gained two members of Parliament and was the largest par ...
(UKIP), and won the most votes at the
May 2019 European Parliament elections. The Brexit Party had largely replaced UKIP in
British politics
The United Kingdom is a unitary state with devolution that is governed within the framework of a parliamentary democracy under a constitutional monarchy in which the monarch, currently Charles III, King of the United Kingdom, is the ...
, with UKIP (which gained 12.6% of the vote but just one MP at the 2015 election) losing almost all its support. UKIP stood in 42 seats in Great Britain and two seats in Northern Ireland.
The
Green Party of England and Wales
The Green Party of England and Wales (GPEW; cy, Plaid Werdd Cymru a Lloegr, kw, Party Gwer Pow an Sowson ha Kembra, often simply the Green Party or Greens) is a green, left-wing political party in England and Wales. Since October 2021, Carla ...
had been led by
Jonathan Bartley
Jonathan Charles Bartley (born 16 October 1971) is a British politician and was Co-Leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, a position he shared with Caroline Lucas and then, from 4 September 2018, with Siân Berry. He was the Green Pa ...
and
Siân Berry
Siân Rebecca Berry (born 9 July 1974) is a British politician who served as Co-Leader of the Green Party of England and Wales alongside Jonathan Bartley from 2018 to 2021, and as its sole leader from July to October 2021. From 2006 to 2007, s ...
since 2018, with its counterpart the
Scottish Green Party
The Scottish Greens (also known as the Scottish Green Party; gd, Pàrtaidh Uaine na h-Alba ; sco, Scots Green Pairtie) are a green political party in Scotland. The party has seven MSPs in the Scottish Parliament as of May 2021. As of the 20 ...
standing in Scottish seats. The two parties stood in a total of 495 seats. The third-largest party in seats won at the 2017 election was the
Scottish National Party, led by
Nicola Sturgeon since 2014, which stands only in Scotland where it won 35 out of 59 seats at the 2017 election. Similarly,
Plaid Cymru
Plaid Cymru ( ; ; officially Plaid Cymru – the Party of Wales, often referred to simply as Plaid) is a centre-left to left-wing, Welsh nationalist political party in Wales, committed to Welsh independence from the United Kingdom.
Plaid wa ...
, led by
Adam Price, stands only in Wales where it held 4 of 40 seats.
Northern Ireland
While a number of UK parties organise in Northern Ireland (including the
Labour Party, which does not field candidates) and others field candidates for election (most notably the
Conservatives
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...
), the main Northern Ireland parties are different from those in the rest of the UK.
Some parties in Northern Ireland operate on an all-
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
basis, including
Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin ( , ; en, " eOurselves") is an Irish republican and democratic socialist political party active throughout both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
The original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur G ...
and
Aontú, who are
abstentionist
Abstentionism is standing for election to a deliberative assembly while refusing to take up any seats won or otherwise participate in the assembly's business. Abstentionism differs from an election boycott in that abstentionists participate in ...
parties and do not take up any Commons seats to which they are elected. The only
independent
Independent or Independents may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups
* Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s
* Independ ...
elected to Parliament in 2017,
Sylvia Hermon, represented
North Down but did not stand in 2019.
In the 2019 election, there were a total of 102 candidates in Northern Ireland. The election result was particularly notable in Northern Ireland as the first Westminster election in which the number of
Nationalists
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: The ...
elected exceeded the number of
Unionists.
Electoral pacts and unilateral decisions
In England and Wales, the Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru, and the Green Party of England and Wales – parties sharing an
anti-Brexit position – arranged a "
Unite to Remain
Unite to Remain () was a campaign and electoral pact during the 2019 United Kingdom general election. It involved three parties that supported remaining in the European Union: the Liberal Democrats, the Green Party of England and Wales, and ...
" pact. Labour declined to be involved. This agreement meant that in 60 constituencies only one of these parties, the one considered to have the best chance of winning, stood. This pact aimed to maximise the total number of anti-Brexit MPs returned under the first-past-the-post system by avoiding the
spoiler effect
Vote splitting is an electoral effect in which the distribution of votes among multiple similar candidates reduces the chance of winning for any of the similar candidates, and increases the chance of winning for a dissimilar candidate.
Vote spl ...
.
In addition, the Liberal Democrats did not run against
Dominic Grieve
Dominic Charles Roberts Grieve (born 24 May 1956) is a British barrister and former politician who served as Shadow Home Secretary from 2008 to 2009 and Attorney General for England and Wales from 2010 to 2014. He served as the Member of Parl ...
(independent, formerly Conservative),
Gavin Shuker
Gavin Shuker (born 10 October 1981) is a British former politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Luton South from 2010 to 2019. Shuker was a Labour Party MP before defecting to form Change UK. He then left Change UK to become ...
(independent, formerly Labour), and
Anna Soubry
Anna Mary Soubry (; born 7 December 1956) is a British barrister, journalist and former politician who was Member of Parliament (MP) for Broxtowe from 2010 to 2019. Known for her support of pro-European policies, she was originally elected ...
(
The Independent Group for Change, formerly Conservative).
The Brexit Party leader
Nigel Farage
Nigel Paul Farage (; born 3 April 1964) is a British broadcaster and former politician who was Leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) from 2006 to 2009 and 2010 to 2016 and Leader of the Brexit Party (renamed Reform UK in 2021) from 2 ...
had suggested the Brexit and Conservative parties could form an electoral pact to maximise the seats taken by Brexit-supporting MPs, but this was rejected by Johnson. On 11 November, Farage announced that his party would not stand in any of the 317 seats won by the Conservatives at the last election. This was welcomed by the Conservative Party chairman
James Cleverly
James Spencer Cleverly (born 4 September 1969) is a British politician and Army Reserve officer who has served as Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs since 2022. A member of the Conservative Party, he has been ...
, and he insisted there had been no contact between them and the Brexit Party over the plan. ''
Newsnight
''Newsnight'' (or ''BBC Newsnight'') is BBC Two's news and current affairs programme, providing in-depth investigation and analysis of the stories behind the day's headlines. The programme is broadcast on weekdays at 22:30. and is also availa ...
'' reported that conversations between members of the Brexit Party and the Conservative, pro-Brexit research support group
European Research Group (ERG) led to this decision.
The Brexit Party reportedly requested that Johnson publicly state he would not extend the Brexit transition period beyond the planned end of December 2020 date and that he wished for a Canada-style free trade agreement with the EU. Johnson did make a statement covering these two issues, something which Farage referenced as key when announcing he was standing down some candidates. Both the Brexit Party and the Conservatives denied any deal was done between the two.
Farage later claimed that he, and eight other prominent Brexit Party figures, were offered a peerage two days before making the announcement to stand down in 317 seats. The claim led to complaints to the Electoral Commission, CPS, and Metropolitan Police.
The Green Party also did not stand in two Conservative-held seats,
Chingford and Woodford Green
Chingford and Woodford Green is a constituency in North East London represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament by Sir Iain Duncan Smith of the Conservative Party since its creation in 1997.
Constituency profile
The seat covers th ...
and
Calder Valley Calder is a Scottish name and may refer to:
People
*Calder (surname)
* Calder baronets, two baronetcies created for people with the surname Calder
*Alexander Calder (1898-1976), the American sculptor known for his mobiles, son of Alexander Stirli ...
, in favour of Labour. The Green Party had also unsuccessfully attempted to form a progressive alliance with the Labour Party prior to Unite to Remain. The Women's Equality Party stood aside in two seats in favour of the Liberal Democrats, after the Lib Dems adopted some of its policies.
The DUP did not contest
Fermanagh and South Tyrone and the UUP did not contest
Belfast North so as not to split the
unionist vote. Other parties stood down in selected seats so as not to split the anti-Brexit vote. The nationalist and anti-Brexit parties the SDLP and Sinn Féin agreed a pact whereby the SDLP did not stand in Belfast North (in favour of Sinn Féin), while Sinn Féin did not stand in
Belfast South (in favour of SDLP); neither party stood in
Belfast East or
North Down and advised their supporters to vote Alliance in those two constituencies. The
Green Party in Northern Ireland
The Green Party Northern Ireland (sometimes abbreviated as Green Party NI) is a political party in Northern Ireland. Like many green political parties around the world, its origins lie in the anti-nuclear, labour and peace movements of the 197 ...
did not stand in any of the four Belfast constituencies, backing the SDLP in Belfast South, Sinn Féin in Belfast North and West, and Alliance in Belfast East and North Down; the party only stood in the
safe seats of
East Antrim,
Strangford and
West Tyrone. Alliance did not stand down in any seats, describing the plans as "sectarian".
Marginal seats
At the 2017 election, more than one in eight seats was won by a margin of 5% or less of votes, while almost one in four was won by 10% or less. These seats were seen as crucial in deciding the election.
2017–2019 MPs standing under a different political affiliation
The 2017–2019 Parliament was defined by a significant amount of political instability, and consequently; a large number of defections and switching between parties. This was due to issues such as disquiet over
antisemitism in the Labour Party, and divisions over Brexit in the Conservative Party. Eighteen MPs elected in 2017 contested the election for a different party or as an independent candidate; five stood for a different seat. All of these candidates failed to be re-elected.
Withdrawn or disowned candidates
The following candidates withdrew from campaigning or had support from their party withdrawn after the close of nominations, and so they remained on the ballot paper in their constituency. Hanvey was elected; the others were not.
Campaign
Campaign background
The
Conservative Party and
Labour Party have been the two biggest political parties, and have supplied every
Prime Minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister i ...
since
1922
Events
January
* January 7 – Dáil Éireann, the parliament of the Irish Republic, ratifies the Anglo-Irish Treaty by 64–57 votes.
* January 10 – Arthur Griffith is elected President of Dáil Éireann, the day after Éamon de Valera ...
. The Conservative Party have governed since the
2010 election, in coalition with the
Liberal Democrats from 2010 to 2015. At the
2015 general election the Conservative Party committed to offering a referendum on
whether the UK should leave the European Union and won a majority in that election. A referendum was held in June 2016, and the Leave campaign won by 51.9% to 48.1%.
The UK initiated the withdrawal process in March 2017, and Prime Minister
Theresa May
Theresa Mary May, Lady May (; née Brasier; born 1 October 1956) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2016 to 2019. She previously served in David Cameron's cabi ...
triggered
a snap general election in 2017, in order to demonstrate support for her planned negotiation of Brexit. The Conservative Party lost seats – they won a plurality of MPs, but not a majority. As a result, they formed a minority government, with the
Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) as their
confidence and supply
In a parliamentary democracy based on the Westminster system, confidence and supply are required for a ruling cabinet to retain power in the lower house.
A confidence-and-supply agreement is one whereby a party or independent members of par ...
partner. Neither May nor her successor
Boris Johnson
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (; born 19 June 1964) is a British politician, writer and journalist who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022. He previously served as F ...
(winner of the
2019 Conservative Party leadership election
The 2019 Conservative Party leadership election was triggered when Theresa May announced on 24 May 2019 that she would resign as leader of the Conservative Party on 7 June and as prime minister of the United Kingdom once a successor had been el ...
)
was able to secure parliamentary support either for a deal on the terms of the UK's exit from the EU, or for exiting the EU without an agreed deal. Johnson later succeeded in bringing his Withdrawal Agreement to a second reading in Parliament, following another extension until January 2020.
During the lifespan of the 2017 parliament, twenty MPs resigned from their parties, most due to disputes with their party leaderships; some formed new parties and alliances. In February 2019, eight Labour and three Conservative MPs left their parties to sit together as
The Independent Group
The Independent Group for Change, also known as Change UK, was a British centrist, pro-European Union political party, founded in February 2019 and dissolved ten months later, shortly after all its MPs lost their seats in the 2019 general e ...
. Having undergone a split and two name changes, at dissolution this group numbered five MPs who sat as the registered party
The Independent Group for Change under the leadership of
Anna Soubry
Anna Mary Soubry (; born 7 December 1956) is a British barrister, journalist and former politician who was Member of Parliament (MP) for Broxtowe from 2010 to 2019. Known for her support of pro-European policies, she was originally elected ...
.
Two MPs sat in a group called
The Independents (which at its peak had five members), one MP created the
Birkenhead Social Justice Party
Frank Ernest Field, Baron Field of Birkenhead, (born 16 July 1942) is a British politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Birkenhead for 40 years, from 1979 to 2019, serving as a Labour MP until August 2018 and thereafter as an In ...
, while a further 20 MPs who began as Labour or Conservative ended the Parliament as unaffiliated independents. Seven MPs, from both the Conservatives and Labour, joined the Liberal Democrats during the parliament, in combination with a
by-election gain. The Lib Dems ultimately raised their number from 12 at the election to 20 at dissolution.
One reason for the defections from the Labour Party was the ongoing row over
antisemitism in the Labour Party. Labour entered the election campaign while under investigation by the
Equality and Human Rights Commission. The
Jewish Labour Movement
{{Infobox organization
, name = Jewish Labour Movement
, pronounce =
, nickname =
, named_after =
, logo = JewishLabourMovementLogo.png
, image_border =
, size ...
declared it would not generally campaign for Labour. The Conservative Party was also criticised for not doing enough to tackle the alleged
Islamophobia in the party.
The Conservatives ended the previous parliamentary period with fewer seats than they had started with because of defections and also the
expulsion of a number of MPs for going against the
party line by voting to prevent a
no-deal Brexit
A no-deal Brexit (also called clean break BrexitBBC. (2019)''Brexit: Jargon-busting guide to the key terms'' (BBC) Retrieved 29 March 2019.) was the potential withdrawal of the UK from the European Union (EU) without a withdrawa ...
. Of the 21 expelled, 10 were subsequently reinstated, while others continued as
independents.
Policy positions
Brexit
The major parties had a wide variety of stances on Brexit. The Conservative Party supported leaving under the terms of the
withdrawal agreement as negotiated by Johnson (amending Theresa May's previous agreement), and this agreement formed a central part of the Conservative campaign via the slogan ‘
Get Brexit Done’. The
Brexit Party
Reform UK is a right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. It was founded with support from Nigel Farage in November 2018 as the Brexit Party, advocating hard Euroscepticism and a no-deal Brexit, and was briefly a significant ...
was in favour of a no-deal Brexit, with its leader
Nigel Farage
Nigel Paul Farage (; born 3 April 1964) is a British broadcaster and former politician who was Leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) from 2006 to 2009 and 2010 to 2016 and Leader of the Brexit Party (renamed Reform UK in 2021) from 2 ...
calling for Johnson to drop the deal.
The Labour Party proposed a renegotiation of the withdrawal agreement (towards a closer post-withdrawal relationship with the EU) and would then put this forward as an option in a referendum alongside the option of remaining in the EU. The Labour Party's campaigning stance in that referendum would be decided at a special conference. In a ''Question Time'' special featuring four party leaders, Labour leader
Jeremy Corbyn
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (; born 26 May 1949) is a British politician who served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party from 2015 to 2020. On the political left of the Labour Party, Corbyn describes himself as a socialist ...
said that he would stay neutral in the referendum campaign.
The
Liberal Democrats,
Scottish National Party (SNP),
Plaid Cymru
Plaid Cymru ( ; ; officially Plaid Cymru – the Party of Wales, often referred to simply as Plaid) is a centre-left to left-wing, Welsh nationalist political party in Wales, committed to Welsh independence from the United Kingdom.
Plaid wa ...
,
The Independent Group for Change, and the
Green Party of England and Wales
The Green Party of England and Wales (GPEW; cy, Plaid Werdd Cymru a Lloegr, kw, Party Gwer Pow an Sowson ha Kembra, often simply the Green Party or Greens) is a green, left-wing political party in England and Wales. Since October 2021, Carla ...
were all opposed to Brexit, and proposed that a
further referendum be held with the option – for which they would campaign – to remain in the EU.
The Liberal Democrats originally pledged that if they formed a majority government (considered a highly unlikely outcome by observers), they would revoke the Article 50 notification immediately and cancel Brexit.
Part-way through the campaign, the Liberal Democrats dropped the policy of revoking Article 50 after the party realised it was not going to win a majority in the election.
The
Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) was in favour of a withdrawal agreement in principle, but it opposed the deals negotiated by both May and Johnson, believing that they create too great a divide between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.
Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin ( , ; en, " eOurselves") is an Irish republican and democratic socialist political party active throughout both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
The original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur G ...
, the
Social Democratic and Labour Party
The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) ( ga, Páirtí Sóisialta Daonlathach an Lucht Oibre) is a social-democratic and Irish nationalist political party in Northern Ireland. The SDLP currently has eight members in the Northern Ireland ...
(SDLP), the
Ulster Unionist Party
The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) is a unionist political party in Northern Ireland. The party was founded in 1905, emerging from the Irish Unionist Alliance in Ulster. Under Edward Carson, it led unionist opposition to the Irish Home Rule m ...
(UUP)
and
Alliance
An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
all favoured remaining in the EU. The UUP did not see a second referendum as a necessary route to achieving this goal.
The environment
The Labour Party promised what they described as a green industrial revolution. This included support for renewable energies and a promise to plant 2 billion trees by 2040. The party also promised to transition to electrify the UK's bus fleet by 2030.
The Lib Dems also promised to put the environment at the heart of their agenda with a promise to plant 60 million trees a year. They also promised to significantly reduce carbon emissions by 2030 and hit zero carbon emissions by 2045. By 2030 they planned to generate 80% of the country's energy needs from renewable energies such as solar power and wind and retrofit 26 million homes with insulation by 2030. They also promised to build more environmentally friendly homes and to establish a new Department for the Climate Crisis.
The Conservatives pledged net zero emissions by 2050 with investment in clean energy solutions and green infrastructure to reduce carbon emissions and pollution. They also pledged to plant 30 million trees.
The Conservatives were judged the worst of the main parties on climate change by
Friends of the Earth with a manifesto which mentioned it only ten times.
Tax and spending commitments
In September 2019, the Conservative government performed a spending review, where they announced plans to increase public spending by £13.8 billion/year, and reaffirmed plans to spend another £33.9 billion/year on the
National Health Service
The National Health Service (NHS) is the umbrella term for the publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom (UK). Since 1948, they have been funded out of general taxation. There are three systems which are referred to using the " ...
(NHS) by 2023. Chancellor
Sajid Javid
Sajid Javid (; born 5 December 1969) is a British politician who served as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care from June 2021 to July 2022, having previously served as Home Secretary from 2018 to 2019 and Chancellor of the Exchequer ...
said the government had turned the page on 10 years of austerity.
During the election the parties produced manifestos that outlined spending in addition to those already planned.
The Conservative manifesto was described as having "little in the way of changes to tax" by the
Institute for Fiscal Studies
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) is an economic research institute based in London, United Kingdom, which specialises in UK taxation and public policy. It produces both academic and policy-related findings.
The institute's aim is to "ad ...
. The decision to keep the rate of corporation tax at 19%, and not reduce it to 17% as planned, is expected to raise £6 billion/year. The plan to increase the national insurance threshold for employees and self-employed to £9,500 will cost £2 billion/year.
They also committed to not raise rates of income tax,
National Insurance
National Insurance (NI) is a fundamental component of the welfare state in the United Kingdom. It acts as a form of social security, since payment of NI contributions establishes entitlement to certain state benefits for workers and their fami ...
or
VAT.
There are increased spending commitments of £3 billion current spending and £8 billion investment spending. This would overall lead to the UK's debt as a percentage of GDP remaining stable (the IFS assesses that it would rise in the event of a no-deal Brexit).
The Labour manifesto planned to raise an extra £78 billion/year from taxes over the course of the parliament, with sources including:
* £24bn – raising the headline rate of corporation tax to 26%
* £6.3bn – tax multinationals' global profits according to UK share of global employment/assets/sales, not UK profits
* £4.0bn – abolish patent box & R&D tax credit for large companies
* £4.3bn – cutting unspecified corporation tax reliefs
* £9bn – financial transactions tax
* £14bn – dividends and capital gains
* £6bn – anti-avoidance
* £5bn – increases in income tax rates above £80,000/year
* £5bn – other
In addition, Labour was to obtain income from the Inclusive Ownership Fund, windfall tax on oil companies, and some smaller tax changes. There were increased spending commitments of £98 billion current spending and £55 billion investment spending. This would, overall, have led to the UK's debt as a percentage of GDP rising.
Labour's
John McDonnell
John Martin McDonnell (born 8 September 1951) is a British politician who served as Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2015 to 2020. A member of the Labour Party, he has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Hayes and Harlington since 1997. ...
said borrowing would only be for investment and one-offs (e.g. compensating
WASPI women, not shown above), and not for day-to-day spending.
The Liberal Democrat manifesto plans to raise an extra £36 billion/year from taxes over the course of the parliament, with sources including:
* £10bn – raising corporation tax to 20%
* £7bn – 1% point rise in all rates of income tax
* £5bn – abolish CGT allowance
* £5bn – air passenger duty on frequent flyers
* £6bn – anti-avoidance
* £3bn – other
There are increased commitments of £37 billion current spending and £26 billion investment spending, which would overall lead to the UK's debt as a percentage of GDP falling, partly due to improved economic conditions which would result from staying in the EU.
= Institute for Fiscal Studies analysis
=
The
Institute of Fiscal Studies
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) is an economic research institute based in London, United Kingdom, which specialises in UK taxation and public policy. It produces both academic and policy-related findings.
The institute's aim is to "a ...
(IFS), an influential research body, released on 28 November its in-depth analysis of the
manifestos of the three main national political parties. The analysis both provides a summary of the financial promises made by each party, and an inspection of the accuracy of claims around government income and expenditure.
The IFS reported that neither the Conservatives nor the Labour Party had published a "properly credible prospectus".
Its analysis of the Conservative manifesto concluded there was "essentially nothing new in the manifesto", that there was "little in the way of changes to tax, spending, welfare or anything else", and that they had already promised increased spending for health and education whilst in government. The Labour manifesto was described as introducing "enormous economic and social change", and increasing the role of the state to be bigger than anything in the last 40 years.
The IFS highlighted a raft of changes in including free childcare, university, personal care and prescriptions, as well nationalisations, labour market regulations, increases in the minimum wage, and enforcing "effective ownership of 10% of large companies from current owners to a combination of employees and government". Labour's vision, the IFS said, "is of a state not so dissimilar to those seen in many other successful Western European economies" and presumed that the manifesto should be seen as "a long-term prospectus for change rather than a realistic deliverable plan for a five-year parliament".
They said the Liberal Democrat manifesto is not as radical as the Labour manifesto but was a "decisive move away from the policies of the past decade".
The Conservative manifesto was criticised for a commitment not to raise rates of income tax,
NICs or
VAT as this put a significant constraint on reactions to events that might affect government finances. One such event could be the "die in a ditch" promise to terminate the Brexit transition period by the end of 2020, which risked harming the economy.
The IFS also stated that it is "highly likely" spending under a Conservative government would be higher than in that party's manifesto, partly due to a number of uncosted commitments.
Outside of commitments to the NHS, the proposals would leave public service spending 14% lower in 2023–2024 than it was in 2010–2011, which the IFS described as "no more austerity perhaps, but an awful lot of it baked in".
The IFS stated it had "serious doubt" that tax rises proposed would raise the amount Labour suggested, and said that they would need to introduce more broad based tax increases. They assess that the public sector does not have the capacity to increase investment spending as Labour would want. The IFS assesses the claim that tax rises will only hit the top 5% of earners, as "certainly progressive", but "clearly not true", with those under that threshold impacted by changes to the marriage allowance, taxes on dividends or capital gains, and lower wages/higher prices that might be passed on from corporation tax changes. Some of Labour's proposals are described as "huge and complex undertakings", where significant care is required in implementation. The IFS is particularly critical of the policy to compensate the so-called "WASPI women", announced after the manifesto, which is a £58bn promise to women who are "relatively well off on average" and will result in public finances going off target. They said that Labour's manifesto would not increase UK public spending as a share of national income above Germany.
They found that Labour's plan to spend and invest would boost economic growth, but the impact of tax rises, government regulation, nationalisations and the inclusive ownership fund could reduce growth, meaning the overall impact of Labour's plan on growth is uncertain.
The IFS described the Liberal Democrats' plans as a "radical" tax and spend package, and said that the proposals would require lower borrowing than Conservative or Labour plans. The report said they were the only party whose proposals would put debt "on a decisively downward path", praising their plan to put 1p on income tax to go to the NHS as "simple, progressive and would raise a secure level of revenue". The IFS also said plans to "virtually quintuple" current spending levels on universal free childcare amounted to "creating a whole new leg of the universal welfare state".
The IFS said that the SNP's manifesto was not costed. Their proposals on spending increases and tax cuts would mean the UK government would have to borrow to cover day-to-day spending. They conclude that the SNP's plans for Scottish independence would likely require increased austerity.
Other issues
The Conservative Party proposed increasing spending on the NHS, although not as much of an increase as Labour and Liberal Democrat proposals. They also proposed increased funding for childcare and on the environment. They proposed more funding for care services and to work with other parties on reforming how care is delivered. They wished to maintain the "triple lock" on pensions. They proposed investing in local infrastructure, including building a new rail line between Leeds and Manchester.
Labour proposed significantly increasing government spending to 45% of national output, which would be high compared to most of UK history, but is comparable with other European countries. This was to pay for an increased NHS budget; stopping state pension age rises; introducing a National Care Service providing free personal care; move to a net-zero carbon economy by the 2030s; nationalising key industries; scrapping
universal Credit
Universal Credit is a United Kingdom social security payment. It is means-tested and is replacing and combining six benefits for working-age households with a low income: income-related Employment and Support Allowance, income-based Jobseeker' ...
; free bus travel for under-25s; building 100,000 council houses per year; and other proposals. Within this, the Labour Party proposed to take rail-operating companies, energy supply networks, Royal Mail, sewerage infrastructure, and England's private water companies back into public ownership. Labour proposed nationalising part of
BT and to provide free
broadband
In telecommunications, broadband is wide bandwidth data transmission which transports multiple signals at a wide range of frequencies and Internet traffic types, that enables messages to be sent simultaneously, used in fast internet connections. ...
to everyone, along with
free education
Free education is education funded through government spending or charitable organizations rather than tuition funding. Many models of free higher education have been proposed. Primary school and other comprehensive or compulsory education is fr ...
for six years during each person's adult life. Over a decade, Labour planned to reduce the average full-time weekly working hours to 32, with resulting productivity increases facilitating no loss of pay.
The Liberal Democrats' main priority was opposing Brexit. Other policies included increased spending on the NHS; free childcare for two-to-four-year-olds; recruiting 20,000 more teachers; generating 80% of electricity from renewable sources by 2030; freezing train fares; and legalising cannabis.
The Brexit Party was also focused on Brexit. It opposed privatising the NHS. It sought to reduce immigration, cutting net migration to 50,000 per year; cutting VAT on domestic fuel; banning the exporting of waste; free broadband in deprived regions; scrapping the BBC licence fee; and abolishing inheritance tax, interest on student loans, and
HS2. It also wanted to move to a US-style
supreme court.
The policies of the SNP included a second referendum on Scottish independence to be held in 2020 as well as one on Brexit, removing Trident, and devolution across issues such as employment law, drug policy, and migration.
The Liberal Democrats, the Greens, the SNP and Labour all support a ban on
fracking
Fracking (also known as hydraulic fracturing, hydrofracturing, or hydrofracking) is a well stimulation technique involving the fracturing of bedrock formations by a pressurized liquid. The process involves the high-pressure injection of "frac ...
, whilst the Conservatives propose approving fracking on a case-by-case basis.
Party positions in the event of a hung Parliament
The Conservatives and Labour both insisted they were on course for outright majorities, but smaller parties were quizzed about what they would do in the event of a hung Parliament. The Liberal Democrats said they would not actively support Johnson or Corbyn becoming Prime Minister, but that they could, if an alternative could not be achieved, abstain on votes allowing a minority government to form if there was support for a second referendum on Brexit. The SNP ruled out either supporting the Conservatives or a coalition with Labour, but spoke about a looser form of support, such as a
confidence and supply
In a parliamentary democracy based on the Westminster system, confidence and supply are required for a ruling cabinet to retain power in the lower house.
A confidence-and-supply agreement is one whereby a party or independent members of par ...
arrangement with the latter, if they supported a second referendum on
Scottish independence.
The DUP previously supported the Conservative government, but withdrew that support given their opposition to Johnson's proposed Brexit deal. It said it would never support Corbyn as prime minister, but could work with Labour if that party were led by someone else. Labour's position on a hung parliament was that it would do no deals with any other party, citing Corbyn to say "We are out here to win it"—although sources say it was prepared to adopt key policies proposed by the SNP and Lib Dems to woo them into supporting a minority government. The UUP has also said they would never support Corbyn as Prime Minister, with their leader Steve Aiken saying he "can't really see" any situation in which they would support a Conservative government either. Their focus would be on remaining in the EU.
Tactical voting
Under the
first-past-the-post
In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast thei ...
electoral system, there is often concern (especially in
marginal seat
A marginal seat or swing seat is a constituency held with a small majority in a legislative election, generally one conducted under a single-winner voting system. In Canada, they may be known as target ridings. The opposite is a safe seat. The ...
s) that if voters of similar ideological leanings are split between multiple different parties they may allow a victory for a candidate with significantly different views. In the early stages of the campaign, there was considerable discussion of
tactical voting
Strategic voting, also called tactical voting, sophisticated voting or insincere voting, occurs in voting systems when a voter votes for another candidate or party than their ''sincere preference'' to prevent an undesirable outcome. For example, ...
(generally in the context of support or opposition to Brexit) and whether parties would stand in all seats or not. There were various
electoral pacts and unilateral decisions. The Brexit Party chose not to stand against sitting Conservative candidates, but stood in most other constituencies. The Brexit Party alleged that pressure was put on its candidates by the Conservatives to withdraw, including the offer of peerages, which would be illegal. This was denied by the Conservative Party. Under the banner of
Unite to Remain
Unite to Remain () was a campaign and electoral pact during the 2019 United Kingdom general election. It involved three parties that supported remaining in the European Union: the Liberal Democrats, the Green Party of England and Wales, and ...
, the Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and the Green Party of England and Wales agreed an electoral pact in some seats, but some commentators criticised the Liberal Democrats for not standing down in some Labour seats.
A number of tactical voting websites were set up in an attempt to help voters choose the candidate in their constituency who would be best placed to beat the Conservative one.
The websites did not always give the same advice, which Michael Savage, political editor of centre-left ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' newspaper, said had the potential to confuse voters.
One of the websites - "GetVoting.org" - set up by
Best for Britain – was accused of giving bogus advice in Labour/Conservative
marginal seat
A marginal seat or swing seat is a constituency held with a small majority in a legislative election, generally one conducted under a single-winner voting system. In Canada, they may be known as target ridings. The opposite is a safe seat. The ...
s.
The website, which had links to the Liberal Democrat party,
was criticised for advising pro-remain voters to back the Liberal Democrats when doing so risked pulling voters away from Labour candidates and enabling the Conservative candidate to gain most votes.
However, they changed their controversial recommendation in Kensington to Labour, lining up with Tactical Vote
TacticalVote.co.uk in this seat, who were the only anti-Brexit tactical voting site with no party affiliations, while Gina Miller's Remain United and People's Vote kept their recommendation for the Liberal Democrats. This caused a lot of confusion around tactical voting,
as it was reported that the sites did not match one another's advice. Further into the election period, tactical voting websites that relied on MRP changed their recommendations on other seats because of new data.
In the final weekend before voting, ''The Guardian'' cited a poll suggesting that the Conservative party held a 15% lead over Labour, while on the same day, the Conservative-backing ''
Daily Telegraph'' emphasised a poll indicating only an 8% lead. Senior opposition politicians from Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the SNP launched a late-stage appeal to anti-Conservative voters to consider switching allegiance in the general election, amid signs that tactical voting in a relatively small number of marginal seats could deprive Johnson of a majority in parliament.
Shortly before the election The Observer newspaper recommended remainers tactically vote for 50 Labour, Liberal Democrat, Scottish National and independent candidates across Great Britain; of these, 13 triumphed, 9 of which were SNP gains in Scotland (in line with a broader trend of relative success for the party), along with four in England divided equally between Labour and the Liberal Democrats. The pollster responsible argued in the aftermath that the unpopularity of the Labour leadership limited the effectiveness of tactical voting. Other research suggested it would have taken 78% of people voting tactically to prevent a Conservative majority completely, and would not have been possible to deliver a Labour majority.
Canvassing and leafleting
Predictions of an overall Conservative majority were based on their targeting of primarily Labour-held, Brexit-backing seats in the Midlands and the north of England. At the start of the election period, Labour-supporting organisation
Momentum held what was described as "the largest mobilising call in UK history", involving more than 2,000 canvassers.
The organisation challenged Labour supporters to devote a week or more to campaigning full-time (by 4 December, 1,400 people had signed up). Momentum also developed an
app called My Campaign Map that updated members about where they could be more effective, particularly in canvassing in marginal constituencies. Over one weekend during the campaign period, 700 Labour supporters campaigned in
Iain Duncan Smith
Sir George Iain Duncan Smith (born George Ian Duncan Smith; 9 April 1954), often referred to by his initials IDS, is a British politician who served as Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition from 2001 to 2003. He was ...
's constituency,
Chingford and Woodford Green
Chingford and Woodford Green is a constituency in North East London represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament by Sir Iain Duncan Smith of the Conservative Party since its creation in 1997.
Constituency profile
The seat covers th ...
, which was regarded as a marginal, with a majority of 2,438 votes at the 2017 general election.
The Liberal Democrats, likewise, were considered possible winners of a number of Conservative-held southern English constituencies, with a large swing that could even topple
Dominic Raab
Dominic Rennie Raab (; born 25 February 1974) is a British politician who has served as Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Secretary of State for Justice, and Lord Chancellor since October 2022, having previously served from 2021 to ...
in
Esher and Walton. At the beginning of the 2019 campaign, they had been accused of attempting to mislead voters by using selective
polling data and use of a quotation attributed to ''The Guardian'' newspaper rather than to their leader,
Jo Swinson
Joanne Kate Swinson (born 5 February 1980) is a former British Liberal Democrat politician who was Leader of the Liberal Democrats from 22 July to 13 December 2019. She was the first woman and the youngest person to hold the position, as well ...
. They were also accused of making campaign leaflets look like newspapers, although this practice had been used by all major British political parties for many years, including by Labour and the Conservatives during this election.
The Liberal Democrats won a court case stopping the SNP from distributing a "potentially defamatory" leaflet in Swinson's constituency over false claims about funding she had received.
In two recorded instances, Labour Party campaigners in their 70s were attacked and verbally abused unprovoked while canvassing and campaigning. In
Bromyard, Herefordshire, Labour campaigners began to canvass only in pairs after reporting being physically attacked and verbally abused as "Marxists".
Online campaigning
The use of
social media advertising was seen as particularly useful to political parties as it could be used to target people of particular demographics.
Labour was reported to have the most interactions, with''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...
'' describing Labour's "aggressive, anti-establishment messages" as "beating clever Tory memes". In the first week of November, Labour was reported to have four of the five most "liked"
tweets by political parties, many of the top interactions of
Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...
posts, as well as being "dominant" on
Instagram, where younger voters are particularly active.
Bloomberg Bloomberg may refer to:
People
* Daniel J. Bloomberg (1905–1984), audio engineer
* Georgina Bloomberg (born 1983), professional equestrian
* Michael Bloomberg (born 1942), American businessman and founder of Bloomberg L.P.; politician and m ...
reported that between 6 and 21 November, the views on Twitter/Facebook were 18.7m/31.0m for Labour, 10m/15.5m for the Conservatives, 2.9m/2.0m for the Brexit Party, and 0.4m/1.4m for the Liberal Democrats.
Brexit was the most tweeted topic for the Conservative Party (~45% of tweets), the Liberal Democrats and the Brexit Party (~40% each). Labour focused on health (24.1%), the environment, and business, mentioning Brexit in less than 5 percent of its tweets.
Devolution was the topic most tweeted about by the SNP (29.8%) and Plaid Cymru (21.4%), and the environment was the top issue for the Green Party (45.9%) on Twitter. The Conservatives were unique in their focus on taxation (16.2%), and the Brexit Party on defence (14%).
Prior to the campaign, the Conservatives contracted New Zealand marketing agency Topham Guerin, which had been credited with helping Australia's
Liberal–National Coalition
The Liberal–National Coalition, commonly known simply as "the Coalition" or informally as the LNP, is an political alliance, alliance of Centre-right politics, centre-right political parties that forms one of the two major groupings in Politic ...
unexpectedly win the
2019 Australian federal election
The 2019 Australian federal election was held on Saturday 18 May 2019 to elect members of the 46th Parliament of Australia. The election had been called following the dissolution of the 45th Parliament as elected at the 2016 double dissolut ...
. The agency's social media approach was described as purposefully posting badly-designed social media material, which becomes viral and so would be seen by a wider audience.
Some of the Conservative social media activity created headlines challenging whether it was deceptive.
This included editing a clip of
Keir Starmer
Sir Keir Rodney Starmer (; born 2 September 1962) is a British politician and barrister who has served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party since 2020. He has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Holborn and St Pancras s ...
to give the appearance he was unable to answer a question about Labour's Brexit policy.
In response to criticism over the doctored Starmer footage, Conservative Party chairman
James Cleverly
James Spencer Cleverly (born 4 September 1969) is a British politician and Army Reserve officer who has served as Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs since 2022. A member of the Conservative Party, he has been ...
said the clip of Starmer was satire and "obviously edited".
Veracity of statements by political parties
During the 19 November debate between Johnson and Corbyn hosted by
ITV, the press office of the
Conservative Campaign Headquarters
The Conservative Campaign Headquarters (CCHQ), formerly known as Conservative Central Office (CCO), is the headquarters of the British Conservative Party, housing its central staff and committee members, including campaign coordinators and manag ...
(CCHQ)
re-branded their Twitter account (@CCHQPress) as 'factcheckUK' (with "from CCHQ" in small text appearing underneath the logo in the account's banner image), which critics suggest could be mistaken for that of an independent
fact-checking body, and published posts supporting the Conservative's position.
In defence, Conservative chairman Cleverly stated that "The Twitter handle of the CCHQ press office remained CCHQPress, so it's clear the nature of the site", and as "calling out when the Labour Party put what they know to be complete fabrications in the public domain".
In response to the re-branding on Twitter, the
Electoral Commission
An election commission is a body charged with overseeing the implementation of electioneering process of any country. The formal names of election commissions vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and may be styled an electoral commission, a c ...
, which does not have a role in regulating election campaign content, called on all campaigners to act "responsibly",
fact-checking body
Full Fact criticised this behaviour as "inappropriate and misleading", and Twitter stated that it would take "decisive corrective action" if there were "further attempts to mislead people".
First Draft News
First Draft News is a project "to fight mis- and disinformation online" founded in 2015 by nine organizations brought together by the Google News Lab. It includes Facebook, Twitter, the Open Society Foundations and several philanthropic organizat ...
released an analysis of Facebook ads posted by political parties between 1 and 4 December. The analysis reports 88% of the 6,749 posts the Conservatives made had been "challenged" by fact checker
Full Fact. 5,000 of these ads related to a "40 new hospitals" claim, of which Full Fact concluded only six had been costed, with the others only currently receiving money for planning (with building uncosted and due to occur after 2025). 4,000 featured inaccurate claims about the cost of Labour's spending plans to the tax payer. 500 related to a "50,000 more nurses" pledge, consisting of 31,500 new nurses, and convincing 18,500 nurses already in post to remain.
16.5% of Liberal Democrats posts were highlighted, which related to claims they are the only party to beat Labour, the Conservatives or the SNP ‘in seats like yours’.
None of the posts made by Labour in the period were challenged, although posts made on 10 December claiming a "Labour government would save households thousands in bills" and the Conservative Party had "cut £8bn from social care" since 2010, were flagged as misleading.
[; ] According to the BBC, Labour supporters had been more likely to share unpaid-for electioneering posts, some of which included misleading claims.
Television debates
ITV aired a head-to-head election debate between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn on 19 November, hosted by
Julie Etchingham
Julie Anne Etchingham (born 21 August 1969) is an English journalist who works as a television newsreader with ITV News. A graduate of Newnham College, Cambridge, Etchingham joined the BBC as a trainee after completing her studies, and went on ...
.
ITV Cymru Wales
ITV Cymru Wales, previously known as Harlech Television and HTV Wales, is the ITV franchise for Wales. The new separate licence began on 1 January 2014, replacing the long-serving dual franchise region serving Wales and the West of England.
L ...
aired a debate featuring representatives from the Conservatives, Labour, the Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and the Brexit Party on 17 November, hosted by
Adrian Masters
Adrian Masters is a Welsh journalist, presenter, author and political moderator.
He is currently the Political Editor at ITV Cymru Wales.
He previously worked for the BBC, contributing to BBC Radio 4's Yesterday In Parliament, most BBC Wales ...
.
Johnson cancelled his ITV interview with Etchingham, scheduled for 6 December, whilst the other major party leaders agreed to be interviewed.
On the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
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...
was due to separately interview party leaders in ''The Andrew Neil Interviews'', and
to separately interview the five main Northern Irish political leaders.
The leaders of the SNP, Labour, Plaid Cymru, the Liberal Democrats and the Brexit Party were all interviewed by Neil and the leader of the Conservative Party was not, leading Neil to release a challenge to Johnson to be interviewed. The Conservatives dismissed Neil's challenge.
also hosted a variety of regional debates.
cancelled a debate scheduled for 24 November after Johnson would not agree to a head-to-head with Corbyn. A few days later, the network hosted a leaders' debate focused on the climate. Johnson and Farage did not attend and were replaced on stage by ice sculptures with their party names written on them. The Conservatives alleged this was part of a pattern of bias at the channel, complained to
that Channel 4 had breached due impartiality rules as a result of their refusal to allow
to appear as a substitute, and suggested that they might review the channel's broadcasting licence. In response, the Conservatives, as well as the Brexit Party, did not send a representative to Channel 4's "Everything but Brexit" on 8 December, and Conservative ministers were briefed not to appear on ''
''.
was due to hold a three-way election debate on 28 November, inviting Johnson, Corbyn and Swinson.
but it was later cancelled after agreements could not be made with Corbyn or Johnson.
Before candidate nominations closed, several planned candidates for Labour and for the Conservatives withdrew, principally because of past social media activity. At least three Labour candidates and one Conservative candidate stood down, with two of the Labour candidates doing so following allegedly antisemitic remarks. Two other Conservative candidates were suspended from the Conservative Party over antisemitic social media posts, but retained their candidacy for the party. The Liberal Democrats removed one of its candidates over antisemitic social media posts, and defended two others.
Several former Labour MPs critical of Corbyn endorsed the Conservatives. Meanwhile, several former Conservative MPs, including former deputy prime minister
, endorsed the Liberal Democrats and/or independent candidates. A week before election day, former Conservative prime minister
warned the public against enabling a majority Conservative government, to avoid what he saw as the damage a Johnson-led government could do to the country through Brexit. Major encouraged voters to vote tactically and to back former Conservative candidates instead of those put forward by the Conservative Party.
. Johnson was criticised for what some saw as his late response to the flooding after he said they were not a national emergency.
The Conservatives banned ''
.
On 27 November, Labour announced it had obtained leaked government documents; they said these showed that the Conservatives were in trade negotiations with the US over the NHS. The Conservatives said Labour was peddling "conspiracy theories", with
later suggesting this was evidence of Russian interference in the election.
A
occurred in London on 29 November; owing to this, the political parties suspended campaigning in London for a time.
The
on 3–4 December 2019. It was attended by 29
.
On 6 December, Labour announced it had obtained leaked government documents which they said showed that Johnson had misled the public about the Conservatives'
, which Johnson had said would not exist.
'' found that third-party campaign groups "pushed anti-Labour attack ads to millions of voters ahead of the 2019 general election spent more than £700,000 without declaring any individual donation".
These included Capitalist Worker and Campaign Against Corbynism, both of which were set up less than three months before the election and quickly disappeared thereafter.
A further investigation, also reported by the ''Daily Mirror'', found that a group run by Conservative activist Jennifer Powers had spent around £65,000 on dozens of advertisements attacking Corbyn and Labour on housing policy without declaring any donations.
'' had reported that Powers was "a corporate lobbyist who is a former employee of the Conservative Party" and that her group had been one of "16 registrations completed since 5 November". ''openDemocracy'', meanwhile, reported on the new phenomenon of U.S.-style,
-esque groups in British elections in an article called "American dirty tricks are corroding British democracy".
Adam Ramsay, who wrote the article, contacted Powers and got her to admit to being an associate at the trade consultancy firm Competere, which was set up by lobbyist Shanker Singham, who works for the neoliberal think tank, the
.
Powers' group, "Right to Rent, Right to Buy, Right to Own", made claims that Labour wanted to "attack property rights in the UK" and "your mortgage will be harder to pay under Labour".
openDemocracy also reported that, during the election campaign, the pro-Labour group
spent more than £500,000, the European Movement for the United Kingdom spent almost £300,000 and the anti-Brexit groups
spent £458,237 and more than one million pounds respectively.
, urging them to investigate.
, who insisted that "a serious and in-depth inquiry into third-party campaigning" was needed.
Ethnic minority and religious leaders and organisations made statements about the general election, with some people within the religious groups being keen to express that no one person or organisation represents the views of all the members of the faith.
stated people had a "democratic duty to vote", that they should "leave their echo chambers", and "issues need to be debated respectfully, and without resorting to personal abuse".
was persistently covered in the media in the lead up to the election. In his leader's interview with Jeremy Corbyn,
dedicated the first third of the 30-minute programme entirely to discussion of Labour's relationship with the Jewish community. This interview drew attention as Corbyn refused to apologise for antisemitism in the Labour Party, despite having done so on previous occasions. The UK's Chief Rabbi,
, made an unprecedented intervention in politics, warning that antisemitism was a "poison sanctioned from the top" of the Labour Party, and saying that
were gripped by anxiety about the prospect of a Corbyn-led government.
supported Rabbi Mirvis's intervention, if not entirely endorsing it. Labour's only Jewish affiliate, the
, said they would not be actively campaigning for Labour except for exceptional candidates.
The
, along with a peaceful solution to Brexit, supporting the poor, care for the homeless, and attention to
and that Conservatives treat it "with denial, dismissal and deceit". In addition they released a 72-page document, outlining what they assess are the key issues from a
, was published at the end of voting at 10 pm, predicting the number of seats for each party.
The Conservative Party won, securing 365 seats out of 650, giving them an overall majority of 80 seats in the House of Commons. They gained seats in several Labour Party strongholds in Northern England that had been held by the party for decades and which had formed the so-called '
, which elected a Conservative MP for the first time in its 134-year history. In the worst result for the party in 84 years,
Labour won 202 seats, a loss of 60 compared to the previous election. This marked a fourth consecutive general election defeat. The Liberal Democrats won 11 seats, down 1, despite significantly increasing their share of the popular vote. Leader
of the SNP by 150 votes, and was thus disqualified from continuing as leader of the party. Swinson therefore became the first party leader to lose their seat since Liberal Party leader
. Former
which then took place in August 2020.
While the Conservatives gained support in England and Wales, they lost support in Scotland in the face of a major SNP advance. The Conservatives won in England, advancing by 1.7% and gaining 48 seats to win 345 out of 533, while Labour fell back by 8% and lost 47 seats to win just 180. Labour won in Wales, though it lost 8% of its 2017 vote share and six seats, retaining 22 out of 40, while the Conservatives advanced by 2.5% and gained six seats, winning 14 in total. The SNP won by a landslide in Scotland, advancing by 8.1% and gaining 13 seats to win 48 out of 59, gaining several seats from the Conservatives and Labour. The Conservatives lost 3.5% of their 2017 vote share and half their seats, while Labour was reduced to one Scottish seat (
). This was the same Scottish seat from the 2015-17 Parliament that returned the country's sole Labour MP,
. Among the Labour MPs who lost their seats in Scotland was:
. In Northern Ireland, nationalist political parties won more seats than unionist ones for the first time. The DUP's leader in Westminster,
.
The results have been attributed to leave-supporting areas backing the Conservatives, the Conservatives broadening their appeal to working-class voters, and the Conservatives making gains in the Midlands and the North of England.
Most notable was the 'red wall' turning blue in the election, which secured the Conservative majority. Voters cited Corbyn's leadership and Brexit as to why they either switched to the Conservatives or stayed at home.
A
post-election survey determined that the age over which voters were more likely to opt for the Conservatives than for Labour was 39, down from 47 in the 2017 election. In contrast to previous elections, the YouGov survey additionally found that a plurality of voters in the
– comprising the unemployed, state pensioners, and semi-skilled and unskilled workers – had opted for the Conservatives over Labour.
Between 26% and 33% of voters said they were trying to prevent a victory by the party they liked least, i.e.
.
Recommendation by tactical voting websites had some benefit for Liberal Democrat candidates.
The new Parliament reportedly had the highest number of openly LGBT MPs in the world, with 20 Conservative MPs, 15 Labour MPs and 10 SNP MPs who identify as LGBT. For the first time in both cases, the majority of elected Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs were female.
A summarised results of the parties that won seats at the election is as follows:
*In total the Green Party of England and Wales, Scottish Greens, and Green Party Northern Ireland received 865,715 votes. This may be unclear from the table and sources which cite the total of the Greens in the whole of the UK, rather than by region.
In his victory speech, Johnson described the result as a mandate for leaving the European Union and promised to do so by the 31 January. The UK left the EU on the 31 January 2020. It completed its separation from the organisation at the end of the year.
The election led to both Labour and the Liberal Democrats having leadership contests: the former as Corbyn resigned, the latter as Swinson failed to be elected as an MP.
Corbyn portrayed the 2019 election results primarily as a consequence of attitudes surrounding Brexit rather than a rejection of Labour's social and economic policies. In an interview held 13 December 2019, Corbyn said the election was “taken over ultimately by Brexit” and said he was “proud of the
manifesto”.
The Labour leadership campaign was marked by conflicting analyses of what had gone wrong for the party in the general election. There was debate as to whether Corbyn's unpopularity or their position on Brexit was more significant. The 2020 ''Labour Together'' report, published by internal Labour party figures after
was elected as leader, highlighted issues such as Corbyn's unpopularity, the party's Brexit policy and poor seat targeting, as well as long-term changes in Labour's electoral coalition. In ''
'', Jo Michell and Rob Calvert Jump argued that the report underplayed the fact the geographical redistributions, stating: "Labour’s decline in the North, Midlands and Wales is not the result of a dramatic collapse in its vote share, but changes in the distribution of votes between parties and constituencies."
Successful Liberal Democrat MPs were critical in private of how the party had decided to advocate revoking the exercise of Article 50, and the communication of that policy. Some criticised the election campaign for being "hubristic" with its initial defining message that Swinson could be the country's next Prime Minister.
, the party's co-acting leader after the election, argued that the unpopularity of Corbyn lost the Liberal Democrats votes to the Conservatives. On the other hand,
, who was re-elected by a majority of 12,322, argued that the party had been wrong to pursue a policy of equidistance between Labour and the Conservatives in the general election campaign. Instead, she argued that the party should have concentrated more on campaigning against the Conservatives.
The SNP's leader
.
The UK government said it would not agree to a referendum being held and the Scottish Government announced a few months later that it would put the issue on hold due to the
.
* Prosser, Christopher. "The end of the EU affair: the UK general election of 2019" ''West European Politics'' (Feb 2021) 44#2 pp 450–461.