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The next United Kingdom general election is scheduled to be held no later than Wednesday 15 August 2029. It will determine the composition of the House of Commons, which determines the government of the United Kingdom.
The 2024 general election resulted in a landslide victory for the Labour Party led by Keir Starmer. The Conservative Party under Prime Minister Rishi Sunak lost 251 seats and suffered their worst ever defeat, ending their 14-year tenure as the primary governing party. The combined vote share for Labour and the Conservatives reached a record low, with smaller parties doing well. The Liberal Democrats made significant gains to reach their highest ever number of seats. Reform UK placed third in the share of the vote in the 2024 election and had MPs elected to the Commons for the first time. [2] The Green Party of England and Wales also won a record number of seats alongside a number of independent MPs. [3] The Scottish National Party (SNP) lost around three quarters of its seats. [4] Labour returned to being the largest party in Scotland and remained so in Wales. The Conservatives won no seats in Wales and only one seat in North East England. [3] The election was noted as the most disproportionate in modern British history, [5] mainly as a result of the first-past-the-post voting system. [6] [7] [8] [9]
On 2 November 2024, Kemi Badenoch won the 2024 Conservative leadership election, becoming the first black woman to lead a major British political party. [10]
This table relates to the composition of the House of Commons after the 2024 UK general election and summarises the changes in party affiliation that took place during the 2024–present Parliament.
| Affiliation | Members | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Elected in 2024 [11] | Current [12] | Difference | ||
| Labour [g] | 411 [h] | 402 |  9 | |
| Conservative | 121 | 121 |  | |
| Liberal Democrats | 72 | 72 | | |
| Independent | 6 | 15 [i] |  9 | |
| SNP | 9 | 9 | | |
| Sinn Féin | 7 | 7 | | |
| DUP | 5 | 5 | | |
| Reform UK | 5 | 5 | | |
| Green (E&W) | 4 | 4 | | |
| Plaid Cymru | 4 | 4 | | |
| SDLP | 2 | 2 | | |
| Alliance | 1 | 1 | | |
| TUV | 1 | 1 | | |
| UUP | 1 | 1 | | |
| Speaker | 1 | 1 | | |
| Vacant | 0 | 0 | | |
| Total | 650 | 650 | | |
| Total voting [j] | 639 | 639 | | |
| Majority of voting | 181 | 165 [16] | | |
For full details of changes during the 2024–present Parliament, see By-elections and Defections, suspensions and resignations.
In order to vote in the general election, barring any changes in eligibility rules, one must be: [17]
Individuals must be registered to vote by midnight twelve working days before polling day. Anyone who qualifies as an anonymous 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.
Under the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022, the prime minister has the power to request the monarch 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, [18] and a general election is held 25 working days after dissolution. [19]
According to the House of Commons, Parliament first met on 9 July 2024 [20] [21] [22] 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. However according to the Electoral Commission the appropriate date to use as the first meeting is the State Opening of Parliament on 17 July 2024, which would mean the latest an election could be held is the 21 August 2029. [23]
| Opinion polling for UK general elections |
|---|
| 2015 election |
| Opinion polls • Leadership approval |
| 2017 election |
| Opinion polls • Leadership approval |
| 2019 election |
| Opinion polls • Leadership approval |
| 2024 election |
| Opinion polls • Leadership approval |
| Next election |
| Opinion polls • Leadership approval |
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 the British 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.
The United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy which, by legislation and convention, operates as a unitary parliamentary democracy. A hereditary monarch, currently King Charles III, serves as head of state while the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, currently Sir Keir Starmer since 2024, serves as the elected head of government.
West Tyrone is a parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom House of Commons. The current MP is Órfhlaith Begley, a member of Sinn Fein, since the 2024 United Kingdom general election.
Mid Ulster is a parliamentary constituency in the UK House of Commons. The current MP is Cathal Mallaghan, of Sinn Féin, who was first elected at the 2024 election.
Fermanagh and South Tyrone is a Northern Ireland parliamentary constituency in the British House of Commons. It is currently represented by Pat Cullen of Sinn Féin.
Belfast North is a parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom House of Commons. The current MP is John Finucane.
Belfast South was a parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom House of Commons.
Newry and Armagh is a parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom House of Commons. The current MP is Dáire Hughes of Sinn Féin who was first elected at the 2024 election.
Bury North is a borough constituency in Greater Manchester, created in 1983 and represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament. With a Conservative majority of 105 votes, it was the most marginal constituency for a sitting MP in the United Kingdom at the 2019 general election. At the 2024 general election, James Frith regained the seat which he had held for Labour from 2017 to 2019.
The 2005 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 5 May 2005, to elect 646 members to the House of Commons. The governing Labour Party led by the prime minister Tony Blair won its third consecutive victory, with Blair becoming the second Labour leader after Harold Wilson to form three majority governments. However, its majority fell to 66 seats; the majority it won four years earlier had been of 167 seats. The UK media interpreted the results as an indicator of a breakdown in trust in the government, and especially in Blair.
The 2010 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 6 May 2010, to elect Members of Parliament to the House of Commons. The election took place in 650 constituencies across the United Kingdom under the first-past-the-post system. The election resulted in a large swing to the opposition Conservative Party led by David Cameron similar to that seen in 1979, the last time a Conservative opposition had ousted a Labour government. The governing Labour Party led by the prime minister Gordon Brown lost the 66-seat majority it had previously enjoyed, but no party achieved the 326 seats needed for a majority. The Conservatives won the most votes and seats, but still fell 20 seats short. This resulted in a hung parliament where no party was able to command a majority in the House of Commons. This was only the second general election since the Second World War to return a hung parliament, the first being the February 1974 election. This election marked the start of Conservative government for the next 14 years.
The 2015 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 7 May 2015 to elect 650 members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons. The Conservative Party, led by prime minister David Cameron, won a unexpected majority victory of ten seats; they had been leading a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats. It was the last general election to be held before the UK voted to leave the European Union (EU) in June 2016.
The 2017 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 8 June 2017, two years after the previous general election in 2015; it was the first since 1992 to be held on a day that did not coincide with any local elections. The governing Conservative Party led by the prime minister Theresa May remained the largest single party in the House of Commons but lost its small overall majority, resulting in the formation of a Conservative minority government with a confidence and supply agreement with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) of Northern Ireland.
The 2019 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 12 December 2019, with 47,074,800 registered voters entitled to vote to elect 650 Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons. The governing Conservative Party, led by the prime minister Boris Johnson, won a landslide victory with a majority of 80 seats, a net gain of 48, on 43.6 per cent of the popular vote, the highest percentage for any party since the 1979 general election, though with a narrower popular vote margin than that achieved by the Labour Party over the Conservatives at the 1997 general election. This was the second national election to be held in 2019 in the United Kingdom, the first being the 2019 European Parliament election.
Opinion polling for the 2019 general election was carried out by various organisations to gauge voting intentions. Results of such polls are displayed in this list. Most of the pollsters listed are members of the British Polling Council (BPC) and abide by its disclosure rules. Opinion polling about attitudes to the leaders of various political parties can be found in a separate article.
3,303 candidates stood in the United Kingdom general election of 2017, which was held on 8 June 2017. The deadline for parties and individuals to file candidate nomination papers to the acting returning officer was 16:00 on 11 May 2017.
The 2019 United Kingdom general election was held on 12 December 2019 to elect all 650 members of the House of Commons, including 18 seats in Northern Ireland. 1,293,971 people were eligible to vote, up 51,273 from the 2017 general election. 62.09% of eligible voters turned out, down 3.5 percentage points from the last general election. For the first time in history, nationalist parties won more seats than unionist parties.
