Following successful and failed coalition talks between parties, defections, drama and chaos, the UK has a new government, with Labour re-entering Number 10 for the first time in 14 years. But how did the views of voters lead to the formation of this government?

Overall result

The Conservatives lost the majority they won in 2019 on the old 650-seat system, and the majority the new system would have delivered them in 2019, falling behind Labour, who have emerged first in votes and seats for the first time since 2005. The Liberal Democrats were the UK’s 3rd largest party until the SNP’s landslide in 2015 pushed the party into fourth place. Sir Ed Davey set out to bring the party back into 3rd place following his election as leader. Following his resignation from politics in the Mass Resignation Event, the Liberal Democrats were placed first in the polls, suggesting that the party was about to retake its role as the main opposition to the Conservatives after Labour displaced its predecessor party, the Liberal Party, from this role in the interwar period. Ultimately, this did not happen, with the party placing 3rd in the election.

Turnout

The campaign group Last Bastion of Democracy called for voters to boycott the “sham” general election due to their view of politicians being “out of touch” and “acting purely within their own self-interest”. However, their call ultimately seems to have fallen on deaf ears, with turnout reaching a record high since universal male suffrage: 91% of those registered to vote, and 80% of those old enough to vote (including those who have not registered to vote), voted in this month’s election, according to the latest population statistics.

Turnout was not uniform across the regions: in Scotland, less than half of registered voters voted, and in the other 2 devolved nations, less than 6 in 10 voters voted. In contrast, in each English region around 6 in 7 registered voters voted, except in London and the North, where turnout seems to be above 100 percent. This is not due to electoral fraud, but is likely due to outdated population statistics.

The Main Parties

Labour

Labour barely improved their national vote share and lost 2 seats compared to 2019, and failed to come first in any region, but won the highest number of votes and seats overall. This is likely due to Labour being the only party to run everywhere in Great Britain, with the party endorsing its sister party the SDLP in Northern Ireland. Labour has also set the new record for the highest number of votes ever won in an election by any party, with the record previously being won by John Major’s Conservatives in the 1992 election. The party performed the best in its usual heartlands in the North of England.

Labour’s vote share decreased drastically in London and Wales compared to 2019, and increased modestly in Scotland, the East of England and the East Midlands. Its vote share stayed level elsewhere.

Conservatives

The Conservatives did not stand a candidate in every constituency in Great Britain for the first time since 1950 in this election (the party also doesn’t stand a candidate against the Speaker by convention). Instead, in London and Scotland they endorsed the Lib Dems, and endorsed Reform in the East and South East. In Northern Ireland, the party endorsed the right-wing DUP. The party went on to lose the majority it would have won in 2019 and narrowly fell to second place behind Labour, now being the largest opposition party. The party got its best results in the North and the East Midlands, and its worst result in Wales.

In 2019, the party famously won the “Red Wall” of leave-voting traditional Labour seats in the North of England and the Midlands as the 2016 Brexit vote and the party’s support for Brexit triggered a movement of socially conservative and pro-Brexit left-wing voters from Labour to the Conservatives. Its gains in the North have continued, with the party’s vote share increasing drastically in the North and the East Midlands. However, the party’s vote share drastically decreased in the West Midlands, and modestly decreased in Wales and the traditionally Conservative South West.

Liberal Democrats

The Liberal Democrats did not stand everywhere, choosing to endorse the Conservatives in Northern England and the East Midlands. The party endorsed their sister party, Alliance, in Northern Ireland. The party performed the best in Scotland and London, and the worst in Wales.

The party increased its vote share everywhere it stood, seeing the highest swings in Scotland and the West Midlands, and the lowest swing in the South East.

Conservative to Labour swing

The swing between the 2 main parties powers changes in elections, with high swings leading to changes in government. In this election, there was a swing of 7.8% from the Conservatives to Labour nationally, the second highest since the 1951 election. Calculating the swing in each region was made difficult by the Conservatives standing down in some regions. In such regions, the swing to/from the Conservatives is calculated as the difference between the vote share achieved by the Conservative-endorsed party this month, and the sum of the vote shares achieved by the Conservatives and the party they endorsed this month in 2019. There is a swing from the Conservatives to Labour in the South (excluding London) and the West Midlands, and a swing from Labour to the Conservatives elsewhere in Britain.

Government vs Opposition

The new government is a Labour-led government also including the Green Party, the Welsh nationalist Plaid Cymru, the Scottish nationalist Alba and the Northern Irish cross-community Alliance Party, recently joined by 2 English MPs who defected to the party from the Lib Dems (being the leader and deputy leader of the Lib Dems prior to defection) over the party rejecting all possible routes into government. The governing parties won majorities in London and all 3 devolved nations, while the opposition parties won majorities elsewhere. It should be noted that this map cannot be interpreted as support for the government: some who voted for a now governing party may not support the government, and some who voted for a party now in opposition may support the government (this is particularly likely to be the case for the Lib Dems).

Results in each region

(E) denotes candidates who were elected.

London

In London, the Lib Dems overtook Labour as the main party. The Lib Dem leader, who dramatically defected to Alliance recently, was elected here.

Lib Dem GAIN from Labour

Labour GAIN from Conservative

Green GAIN from Labour

Lib Dem GAIN from Labour

Labour GAIN from Conservative

Runner up: Green by 441 018 votes

Gallagher index: 6.66

Sainte-Laguë index: 2.99

South East England

In this traditionally Conservative-leaning region, Reform (who the Conservatives endorsed here) came on top, with other parties not far behind. The leader of the Green Party wins their seat here.

Reform GAIN from Conservative

Green GAIN from Conservative

Lib Dem GAIN from Labour

Labour GAIN from Lib Dem

Reform GAIN from Conservative

Runner up: Green by 192 998  votes

Gallagher index: 9.58

Sainte-Laguë index: 6.63

South West England

In the traditionally Conservative South West, the Conservatives lose a seat to the Lib Dems, but that Lib Dem MP has since defected to Alliance.

Conservative HOLD

Lib Dem GAIN from Conservative

Labour HOLD

Runner up: Conservative by 293 771 votes

Gallagher index: 8.33

Sainte-Laguë index: 4.33

East of England

In this traditionally Conservative-leaning region, the Lib Dems come first and Reform (who the Conservatives endorsed here) come second. Reform's leader wins a seat here.

Lib Dem GAIN from Conservative

Reform GAIN from Conservative

Labour HOLD

Runner up: Lib Dem by 929 935 votes

Gallagher index: 3.39

Sainte-Laguë index: 0.68

West Midlands

In this traditional Conservative-Labour swing region, the Lib Dems come first.

Lib Dem GAIN from Conservative

Conservative GAIN from Labour

Labour GAIN from Conservative

Runner up: Lib Dem by 990 827 votes

Gallagher index: 2.12

Sainte-Laguë index: 0.27

East Midlands

In this traditional Conservative-Labour swing region, the Conservatives remain first.

Conservative HOLD

Labour HOLD

Conservative HOLD

Runner up: Labour by 835 374 votes

Gallagher index: 2.64

Sainte-Laguë index: 0.30

North West England

In this traditional Labour-leaning region, the Conservatives overtake Labour. The leader of Labour is elected here.

Conservative GAIN from Labour

Labour GAIN from Conservative

Conservative GAIN from Labour

Labour GAIN from Conservative

Runner up: Conservative by 940 487 votes

Gallagher index: 4.37

Sainte-Laguë index: 0.80

North East England, Yorkshire and the Humber

In this traditionally Labour region which defected to the Conservatives in 2019, the Conservatives remain ahead. The leader of the Conservatives is elected here.

Conservative HOLD

Labour HOLD

Conservative HOLD

Labour HOLD

Runner up: Conservative by 146 862 votes

Gallagher index: 9.08

Sainte-Laguë index: 3.41

Scotland

Scotland's seats yet again are split between unionist and nationalist.

Lib Dem GAIN from SNP

Alba GAIN from Conservative

Runner up: Labour by 232 180 votes

Gallagher index: 20.53

Sainte-Laguë index: 31.28

Wales

Welsh nationalist Plaid Cymru gains a seat here, and, in the narrowest result of the night, Labour just fails to win a seat in the Labour-leaning nation.

Plaid Cymru GAIN from Labour

Conservative HOLD

Runner up: Labour by 8 576 votes

Gallagher index: 31.37

Sainte-Laguë index: 81.10

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland's unionist community narrowly fails to win a seat, with that seat going to the cross-community Alliance instead.

Alliance GAIN from DUP

SDLP GAIN from Sinn Fein

Runner up: DUP by 10 156 votes

Gallagher index: 28.06

Sainte-Laguë index: 47.93

Proportionality

The proportionality of elections can be measured using the Gallagher index, which varies between 0 for a perfectly proportional result (ie the percentage of votes and seats a party wins are the exact same), and 100 for a perfectly disproportional result (for example, if one party wins every vote and a different party wins every seat), using the Sainte-Laguë index (which has no upper bound, with higher scores meaning more disproportional elections), and using many other indexes. The Gallagher index of this election is 4.45, which is lower than in 2019 under first past the post (when it was 11.84), but is higher than the electoral systems of many other nations using proportional representation, implying that the UK's new electoral system is semi-proportional. The Sainte-Laguë index is 20.16.

However, in some regions, the result is very disproportional, particularly in the devolved nations, which were close 3 or 4-horse races; but, as those regions had only 2 votes each, it means that a significant proportion of voters in those regions are not represented in Westminster, leading to very high Gallagher indexes.