The UK general election has ended. Right after the polls closed, the exit poll results were announced. The Labour Party won, gaining 410 seats in the 650-seat House of Commons.
On Thursday, the UK hosted elections to the House of Commons. The previous one was held in December 2019. The vote ended at 10 p.m. local time (11 p.m. in Poland). After the vote, the results were announced polls exit poll. According to them, the Labour Party won, gaining 410 seats.
Read also: UK Elections: What You Need to Know
Exit poll results
- Labour Party: 410 seats
- Conservative Party: 131
- Reform UK: 13
- Liberal Democrats: 61
- Green Party: 2
- Scottish National Party: 10
- Wales Party: 4
- Other: 9
In the previous five elections, the average difference between the number of seats predicted in the exit polls and the final number for individual parties ranged, approximately, from 2 to 8 seats.
During the night, as votes are counted, full results from individual districts will begin to arrive. The first ones should appear around 00:30 on Friday Polish time., but most results will be announced after 3 p.m. Full results from all districts should be known by 9 a.m. CET on Friday.
The newly elected House of Commons will meet on Tuesday, July 9, when the Speaker, who will almost certainly remain Lindsay Hoyle, will be elected and the oath-taking process will begin, which will last several days. The opening ceremony of the new session of Parliament is scheduled for July 17, with the monarch's speech from the throne, during which Charles III will present the government's legislative program.
UK electionsPAP/EPA/ANDY RAIN
The British have decided
More than 46 million citizens were eligible to vote and registered to vote. They voted in some 40,000 polling stations to elect 650 members of the House of Commons. A total of 4,515 candidates ran for seats, the highest number ever. 459 candidates ran as independents, and the rest represented 98 political parties, another record.
The elections are held under a majority system with single-member constituencies, meaning that the candidate who receives the most votes is elected from each of the 650 constituencies. Each constituency should represent a similar number of voters – in this year's elections, this is +/- 5 percent compared to the average of 73,393 people. Of these 650 constituencies, 543 are located in England57 in Scotland32 in Walesand 18 in Ireland Northern.
Polls predict a crushing defeat after 14 years in power. “People are fed up with lies and incompetence”Maciej Woroch/Fakty TVN
Key topics of the election campaign
According to polls, the state of the British economy is the most important issue for most voters today, given the high cost of living and record Inflationwhich peaked at 11.1 percent in 2022 and has only recently started to return to normal levels.
Another important topic of the election campaign was healthcareor more precisely, the situation of the National Health System (NHS), or the state-funded healthcare system. A decade of fiscal austerity, which began under Prime Minister David Cameron after the 2009 global financial crisis, left British public services deeply underfunded and chronically understaffed. Waiting lists for NHS treatment were already growing before the pandemic, which has only worsened the situation. The healthcare crisis has been one of the main sources of social discontent in the UK.
The third most important issue in the eyes of British voters is immigrationalthough its importance varies by party preference. In a recent YouGov poll, only 20 per cent of Labour voters said it was one of the most pressing national issues, compared with 65 per cent of Conservatives.
Main image source: PAP/EPA/ANDY RAIN