UK General Elections
Every United Kingdom general election from 1802 to 2024: the results, the leaders, the turnout, the governments they made, and the story of each. Plus referendums, devolved elections, European elections and mayoral contests.
General elections
58
1802–2024
Latest
2024
Labour · Keir Starmer
Commons seats today
650
Electorate
48.2m
registered voters, 2024
The chronology
Every general election, newest first, grouped into eight eras. Click any election for the full result, the party table and the story.
The Brexit Realignment · 2015–2024
Four elections in nine years, framed by two referendums. Old class loyalties dissolved: the SNP swept Scotland, the Red Wall fell in 2019, and in 2024 FPTP produced the most disproportional result in British history.
Labour 411Conservative 121Liberal Democrats 72others 4
Conservative 365Labour 202SNP 48others 24
Conservative 317Labour 262SNP 35others 7
Conservative 330Labour 232SNP 56others 24
New Labour · 1997–2010
Blair's 1997 landslide began thirteen years of Labour government, devolution and a supreme era of electoral professionalisation, ending in the first hung parliament and first formal coalition since the war.
Conservative 306Labour 258Liberal Democrats 57others 29
Labour 355Conservative 198Liberal Democrats 62others 31
Labour 412Conservative 166Liberal Democrats 52others 29
Labour 418Conservative 165Liberal Democrats 46others 30
Crisis and Thatcherism · 1974–1992
Two elections in 1974 delivered hung-parliament instability and a strong third-party vote. Thatcher's three victories remade the political economy while the opposition split, and FPTP turned a divided anti-Conservative vote into 18 years of Tory rule.
Conservative 336Labour 271Liberal Democrats 20others 24
Conservative 376Labour 229Alliance 22others 23
Conservative 397Labour 209Alliance 23others 21
Conservative 339Labour 269Liberal 11others 16
Labour 319Conservative 277Liberal 13others 15
Labour 301Conservative 297Liberal 14others 23
The Postwar Settlement · 1945–1970
Attlee's 1945 landslide built the welfare state; the Conservatives governed for thirteen years without dismantling it. Two-party dominance peaked, with Labour and the Conservatives together taking nine of every ten votes.
Conservative 330Labour 288Liberal 6others 6
Labour 364Conservative 253Liberal 12others 1
Labour 317Conservative 304Liberal 9
Conservative 365Labour 258Liberal 6others 1
Conservative 345Labour 277Liberal 6others 2
Conservative 321Labour 295Liberal 6others 3
Labour 315Conservative 298Liberal 9others 3
Labour 393Conservative 197Liberal 12others 27
Labour's Rise · 1918–1935
The 1918 franchise revolution enfranchised women and working-class men, Sinn Féin swept Ireland out of Westminster, and Labour displaced the divided Liberals within a decade. Depression-era crises produced the century's biggest landslides.
Conservative 387Labour 154Liberal National 33others 12
Conservative 470Labour 52Liberal National 35others 8
Labour 287Conservative 260Liberal 59others 9
Conservative 412Labour 151Liberal 40others 12
Conservative 258Labour 191Liberal 158others 8
Conservative 344Labour 142Liberal 62others 14
Conservative 379Coalition Liberal 127Sinn Féin 73others 28
The Mass Franchise · 1868–1910
Gladstone and Disraeli made elections national duels, Ireland made them existential, and successive Reform Acts tripled the electorate. By 1910 the Lords, Home Rule and a rising Labour movement had brought the constitutional order to a breaking point.
Liberal 272Conservative and Liberal Unionist 271Irish Parliamentary 74others 11
Liberal 274Conservative and Liberal Unionist 272Irish Parliamentary 71others 5
Liberal 397Conservative and Liberal Unionist 156Irish Parliamentary 82others 6
Conservative and Liberal Unionist 402Liberal 183Irish Parliamentary 76others 7
Conservative and Liberal Unionist 411Liberal 177Irish National Federation 70others 12
Conservative and Liberal Unionist 314Liberal 272Irish National Federation 72others 12
Conservative and Liberal Unionist 393Liberal 192Irish Parliamentary 85
Liberal 319Conservative 247Irish Parliamentary 86others 18
Liberal 352Conservative 237Home Rule 63
Conservative 350Liberal 242Home Rule 60
Liberal 387Conservative 271
Reform and Realignment · 1832–1865
The 1832 Reform Act began the slow expansion of the franchise. Whigs and Tories fractured over Corn Laws and free trade, re-forming as the Liberal and Conservative parties by mid-century.
Liberal 369Conservative 289
Liberal 356Conservative 298
Whig 377Conservative 264others 13
Conservative 330Whig 324
Conservative 325Whig 292Irish Repeal 36others 3
Conservative 367Whig 271Irish Repeal 20
Whig 344Conservative 314
Whig 385Conservative 273
Whig 441Tory 175Irish Repeal 42
The Unreformed Commons · 1802–1831
Before the Great Reform Act, elections were contests of patronage more than votes: rotten boroughs, tiny electorates and hundreds of uncontested seats. Governments were made and unmade in Parliament, not at the polls.
Whig 370Tory 235others 53
Tory 250Whig 196Ultra-Tories 60others 152
Tory 428Whig 198others 32
Tory 341Whig 215others 102
Tory (Pittite) 280Whig 175others 203
Tory 399Whig 196others 63
Tory 216Whig 213others 229
Whig 431Tory 228
Addingtonian 467Foxite 124Grenvillite 25others 42
A century in charts
The statistical arc since the 1918 franchise revolution, from the House of Commons Library dataset. Hover any point for the exact figure.
Turnout, 1918–2024
The 1950 peak of 83.9% and the modern slide: no election since 1997 has cleared 70%.
The two-party grip
Conservative + Labour share of votes versus seats. The gap between the lines is first-past-the-post at work: the vote share collapsed after 1970, the seat share barely moved until 2024.
Women in the Commons
One woman was elected in 1918. The share passed 10% only in 1997, on Labour's all-women shortlists, and reached a third by 2019.
Votes versus seats, 2024
The most disproportional result in British history: each bar pair shows a party's vote share (muted) against its seat share (solid).
Records & superlatives
Highest turnout since 1918
83.9%
1950 general election
Lowest turnout since 1918
57.2%
1918 general election
Largest majority since 1918
492
National, 1931
Most votes for one party
14,094,116
Conservative, 1992
Most seats since 1918
470
Conservative, 1931
Biggest winner's bonus
+29.5 pts
Labour turned 33.7% of votes into 63.2% of seats, 2024
The referendums
Britain governed without referendums until 1973; it has held them at every constitutional fork since.
Devolved & European elections
Parallel democracies under proportional systems since 1999, where nationalist parties routinely outperform Westminster.
How this is measured
Scottish Parliament
SNP 35Con 18LD 17
SNP 27Con 18LD 17
Lab 46Con 17LD 16
Lab 37Con 15LD 5
Con 31Lab 24Green 6
Con 31Lab 22Green 8
Lab 17Reform 17Green 15
Senedd Cymru / Welsh Parliament
PC 17Con 9LD 6
PC 12Con 11LD 6
PC 15Con 12LD 6
Con 14PC 11LD 5
PC 12Con 11UKIP 7
Con 16PC 13LD 1
Reform 34Lab 9Con 7
Northern Ireland Assembly
SDLP 24DUP 20Sinn Féin 18
UUP 27Sinn Féin 24SDLP 18
Sinn Féin 28UUP 18SDLP 16
Sinn Féin 29UUP 16SDLP 14
Sinn Féin 28UUP 16SDLP 12
Sinn Féin 27SDLP 12UUP 10
DUP 25Alliance 17UUP 9
European Parliament, 1979–2019
Great Britain seats; Northern Ireland elected 3 MEPs by STV throughout. The last two contests were won by insurgent parties that no longer exist: UKIP in 2014 and the Brexit Party in 2019.
Local & mayoral elections
Local elections are Britain's rolling opinion poll: some 20,000 councillors elected in annual waves, plus directly elected mayors (London since 2000, metro mayors since 2017) and police commissioners since 2012.
Metro-mayoral contests
Latest directly-elected mayoral contest per authority: London since 2000, combined-authority mayors since 2017.
Council seats held, 1973–2026
Total councillors by party across Great Britain, 1973–2026.
How this is measured
How UK general elections work
First past the post
One MP per constituency; the candidate with the most votes wins, no majority required. The system rewards geographically concentrated support and punishes evenly spread votes.
650 constituencies
The Commons has had between 615 and 707 seats since 1918. A party needs 326 for a bare majority today, though Sinn Féin's abstention lowers the practical bar.
The timetable
Parliaments run a maximum of five years; Prime Ministers choose the date within that window. Two elections in one year has happened twice, in 1910 and 1974.
Governments, not presidents
Voters elect a Parliament; the Crown appoints whoever can command it. Hung parliaments produce minority governments or coalitions, as in 1910, the 1920s, 1974, 2010 and 2017.