Next United Kingdom general election

The next United Kingdom general election is scheduled to be held no later than 28 January 2025. It will determine the composition of the House of Commons.

Background

The next election is scheduled to be held no later than 28 January 2025, with Parliament being dissolved no later than 17 December 2024, after the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022 repealed the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011. Although a general election campaign encompassing the Christmas period is seen as unlikely by analysts, it is widely expected that the currently-governing Conservative Party will delay the election as long as possible while it remains behind in opinion polling.

The results of the 2019 general election are given below. Alongside are the current numbers in the House of Commons, through by-elections, defections and suspensions of Members from their party that have taken place throughout this Parliament.

For full details of changes during the current Parliament, see By-elections and Defections, suspensions and resignations.

Ahead of this general election, HuffPost reported in March 2022 that the Labour Party had abandoned all-women shortlists, citing legal advice that continuing to use them for choosing parliamentary candidates would become an unlawful practice again under the Equality Act 2010.

Following the Supreme Court's decision in November 2022 that a proposed second Scottish independence referendum is beyond the authority of the Scottish Parliament, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon (SNP) announced her intention to treat the next general election as a de facto independence referendum. Unionist parties have rejected this characterisation. Sturgeon announced her resignation as SNP leader and first minister on 15 February 2023, and was succeeded on 27 March by Humza Yousaf.

Electoral system

General elections in the United Kingdom are organised using first-past-the-post voting. The Conservative Party, which won a majority at the 2019 general election, included pledges in its manifesto to remove the 15-year limit on voting for British citizens living abroad, and to introduce a voter identification requirement in Great Britain. Provisions for these changes have been enacted in the Elections Act 2022.

Boundary reviews

The Sixth Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies, which proposed reducing the number of constituencies from 650 to 600, was commenced in 2011, but temporarily stopped in January 2013. Following the 2015 general election, each of the four parliamentary boundary commissions of the United Kingdom recommenced their review process in April 2016. The four commissions submitted their final recommendations to the Secretary of State on 5 September 2018 and made their reports public a week later. However, the proposals were never put forward for approval before the calling of the general election held on 12 December 2019, and in December 2020 the reviews were formally abandoned under the Schedule to the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 2020.

A projection by psephologists Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher of how the 2017 votes would have translated to seats under the 2018 boundaries suggested the changes would have been beneficial to the Conservative Party and detrimental to the Labour Party.

In March 2020, Cabinet Office minister Chloe Smith confirmed that the 2023 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies would be based on retaining 650 seats. The previous relevant legislation was amended by the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 2020 and the four boundary commissions formally launched their 2023 reviews on 5 January 2021. They were required to issue their final reports prior to 1 July 2023. Once the reports have been laid before Parliament, Orders in Council giving effect to the final proposals must be made within four months, unless "there are exceptional circumstances". Prior to the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 2020, boundary changes could not be implemented until they were approved by both Houses of Parliament.

The boundary changes are expected to take effect from the end of October 2023, meaning that the general election will be contested on these new boundaries unless it occurs earlier.

Notional 2019 results

The election will be fought under new boundaries therefore creating a notional result from 2019, as if it had been fought on the boundaries established in 2023. These notional results will be important when calculating seat gains and losses.

Campaign

Liberal Democrats

The Scottish Liberal Democrats aim to use the ferry fiasco to regain their former seats in the Scottish Highlands.

Scottish National Party

On 24 June 2023, at an event at the Caird Hall in Dundee, Humza Yousaf announced his support for using the general election as a referendum to demand Scottish independence.

Date of the election

Legal requirements

At the 2019 general election, in which the Conservatives won a majority of 80 seats, the manifesto of the party contained a commitment to repeal the Fixed-term Parliaments Act due to "paralysis at a time when the country has needed decisive action". The pledge was confirmed in the first Queen's Speech following the election.

In December 2020, the government published a draft Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 (Repeal) Bill, later retitled the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022.

The Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022 received royal assent on 24 March 2022 and entered into force the same day. The prime minister can again request the monarch to dissolve Parliament and call an early election with 25 working days' notice. Section 4 of the Act provided: "If it has not been dissolved earlier, a Parliament dissolves at the beginning of the day that is the fifth anniversary of the day on which it first met."

The Electoral Commission has confirmed that the 2019 Parliament must be dissolved, at the latest, by 17 December 2024, and that the next general election must take place no later than 28 January 2025.

Possible dates

In September 2021, Oliver Dowden, the newly appointed chairman of the Conservative Party, told party staff to prepare for a general election. In March 2022, Dowden announced that the Conservatives would start a two-year election campaign in May, implying an election date of May 2024. It was reported in April 2023 by The Telegraph that autumn 2024 was the preferred date of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak for the election to be held. In September 2023, the announcement of Rishi Sunak's planned shift on green policies led many politicians and political pundits to believe it was essentially the beginning of an election campaign for May 2024.

Candidates

Members of Parliament not standing for re-election

As of 20 September 2023, a total of 72 current members of Parliament have announced their intention not to stand for re-election (Conservative: 45, Labour: 14, Scottish National Party (SNP): 8, Independent: 3, Plaid Cymru: 1, Green: 1). Three MPs - Nadine Dorries (Conservative), Nigel Adams (Conservative), and Chris Pincher (Independent) - announced their intention not to stand again but later resigned from Parliament before the election.

Members of Parliament deselected

Some sitting MPs have not been selected by their party to recontest their seat (or a successor seat). Options available to these MPs include standing down, challenging their non-selection, seeking selection for another seat, and contesting the election under a different banner.

Members of Parliament changing constituencies

Due to boundary changes, most MPs will represent a seat at least slightly different from their present seat. However, in some cases MPs have secured selection in a substantially or completely different seat from their present seat. They may happen because their seat is very marginal and is likely to be lost by their party, boundary changes abolish their present seat or their present seat is redrawn in an unfavourable way in boundary changes.

• Eddie Hughes (Conservative), selected for Tamworth as his current Walsall North is proposed to be abolished, and the main successor seat of Walsall and Bloxwich is considered significantly more vulnerable to the Labour Party than Tamworth, where the incumbent Chris Pincher is standing down.
• Alison McGovern (Labour), selected for Birkenhead due the proposed abolition of her Wirral South seat, beating incumbent Mick Whitley. The reconfigured Birkenhead contains a small part of her present seat.
• Alec Shelbrooke (Conservative), selected for Wetherby and Easingwold due to his current Elmet and Rothwell seat being abolished and broken up between four other seats. Wetherby and Easingwold will take in the Harewood and Wetherby wards of Leeds, but is otherwise based in North Yorkshire rather than West Yorkshire.
• Iain Stewart (Conservative) has moved from Milton Keynes South to the new Buckingham and Bletchley seat.
• Simon Baynes (Conservative) selected for North Shropshire after his Clwyd South seat is set to be abolished in boundary changes. His new seat, which the Liberal Democrats gained in a 2021 by-election, contains none of his present seat.
• Flick Drummond (Conservative) was selected for Winchester in July 2023 after her Meon Valley seat is set to be abolished. The Winchester seat contains about 25% of her present seat. She ran for the proposed Fareham and Waterlooville seat, which contains a plurality of her current seat and is forecast to be much safer for the Conservatives than Winchester (a key Liberal Democrat target), but was defeated by Suella Braverman, the current MP for Fareham and current Home Secretary.
• Stuart Anderson (Conservative), the current MP for Wolverhampton South West, has been selected for South Shropshire (currently named Ludlow). While there are no significant changes to his old seat, it is a marginal Conservative seat, whereas South Shropshire is likely a safe Conservative seat. Anderson had initially announced he would not stand for re-election but subsequently changed his mind.
• Stuart Andrew (Conservative), currently MP for Pudsey, has said he will not stand in either of the two new Pudsey constituencies being created, but has not ruled out standing in a different seat.
• Paul Holmes (Conservative), has moved from Eastleigh to the new Hamble Valley seat. The new seat contains 48% of his current seat.