Four striking general election outcomes showing the chaos of First Past the Post

The dust is settling on the results of the 2024 UK general election. We have a Labour government for the first time since 2010, with a majority of seats almost as big as Tony Blair’s landslide of 1997. 

Beneath the surface of the overall result, however, there is much to explore. You can do this for yourself using our new 2024 general election dashboard – where you can investigate results at constituency, regional and national level. 

To kick off, here are four notable things from our analysis of the general election results. 

1. This was the most disproportional UK general election result in history

On the day after the general election, we crunched the numbers on the disparity between the number of votes and seats won by each party and we concluded that this was the most disproportional general election on record. The BBC Verify service backed up our findings. An example of this disproportionality is the fact that Labour won almost two-thirds of the MPs, with just one-third of votes. 

2. Fewer than 15% of MPs were elected with over half of the votes in their constituency

Just 96 of the 650 MPs were elected with a majority of votes in their area. There was just one constituency (Harrow East) where a Conservative MP received over half of the votes. This means that in 554 constituencies (85% of all seats), more people voted for losing candidates than voted for the winning candidate.

Under our First-Past-The-Post system (FPTP), a candidate needs just one more vote than the second-placed candidate, no matter how low their vote share. Overall, well over half of people (58%) voted for losing candidates. 

3. Wild results in Scotland

Over recent general elections, Scotland has seen some wild fluctuations in general election outcomes. In 2015, the Scottish National Party (SNP) won all but three seats in Scotland, with 50% of the votes. In 2024, they have been reduced to just 9 seats (16% of Scotland’s seats) despite still receiving 30% of votes in Scotland.

Meanwhile, Labour, who finished just 5 points ahead of the SNP in terms of votes (35%), picked up 37 Scottish seats (65% of all Scottish seats). This is because the SNP’s vote share was evenly spread across Scotland. They achieved close to 30% in many seats and came second in every single seat that they did not win. However, they could not get across the FPTP line in many places. This meant that despite receiving far fewer votes across Scotland, the Liberal Democrats (10% of votes; 6 seats) and the Conservatives (13% of votes; 5 seats) each picked up nearly as many Scottish MPs as the SNP did, as they had pockets of strength where they could get over the FPTP line. 

4. Very different outcomes for smaller GB-wide parties

Liberal Democrat voters have historically suffered under FPTP, failing to see their votes translated into adequate representation in the House of Commons. For example, at the 2019 general election, the Liberal Democrats received 336,038 votes per seat won, whereas the Conservatives received just 38,264 votes per seat.

In 2024, however, the Liberal Democrats had a more vote that was more efficiently spread than the Conservatives. The Liberal Democrats achieved an MP for every 48,877 votes received, whereas the same figure for the Conservatives was 56,422 votes. This resulted in the unprecedented situation of the Liberal Democrats’ vote share and seat share being a closer match than the Conservatives’ vote and seat share. The Lib Dems received 11% of MPs from 12% of votes, whereas the Conservatives received 19% of MPs from 24% of votes. The Lib Dems were able to achieve this by focusing their efforts on areas of strength, mainly in southern England, and took advantage of the collapse in the Conservatives’ vote to win a record-breaking 72 MPs.

It was a very different story for the votes of other GB-wide parties who received more than 5% of votes. Despite receiving almost 600,000 more votes than the Liberal Democrats, Reform UK won just 5 seats (14% of votes but just 1% of seats). Meanwhile, the Green Party, despite making a number of breakthroughs still won only 4 seats (0.6% of seats, despite a record-breaking 7% of votes). Reform UK received 821,332 votes per MP elected and the Green Party received 485,814 votes per MP elected. 

Seats in Parliament should match how we vote

We need to end these random results thrown up by our broken First Past the Post system and make sure voters get the proper representation that their votes demand. Proportional Representation is an idea whose time has come.