The rise of multi-party voting at UK general elections

With votes for parties, and independent candidates, other than Labour and the Conservatives reaching a historic high of 42.6%, the 2024 General Election saw a significant shift towards multi-party voting. The combined Labour and Conservative vote share of 57.4% was the lowest since Labour established themselves as the second largest party in UK politics, at the 1922 general election.

Another record high was the 27.1% of votes that went to parties or independent candidates who were not representing either Labour, the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats (or their predecessors) or either of the Scottish and Welsh nationalist parties (Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru). The previous high was 19.5% at the 2015 general election. In no other general election across the last hundred years was this figure above 10% and prior to the 1997 general election it was never above 4%.

Voters gave their support to a more diverse range of parties and independent candidates than ever before.

The 2024 general election returned the highest number of MPs from third parties (MPs not representing Labour or the Conservatives) since the 1923 general election. 117 third-party MPs were elected, representing 18% of all MPs. The 2024 General Election is the first time since 1923 that the number of third-party MPs elected has been above 100.

Despite the increase in MPs from third parties, the surge in support that they received from voters at the 2024 general election is still very far from being properly reflected in representation in the House of Commons. For example, the Green Party received 6.7% of votes but only 0.6% of seats, while Reform UK received 14.3% of votes and 0.8% of seats. Labour, on the other hand, received 33.7% of votes and 63.2% of seats.

This is because First Past the Post is an electoral system designed for a situation in which there are just two dominant parties.

When more parties are in contention, as is the case when voters spread their choices across multiple parties, the winner’s share of the vote is often reduced. As a result, winning candidates often get across the line with less than a majority and occasionally, less than a third of constituency support

554 constituencies (85% of all seats) saw an MP elected with less than half the votes cast (this compares to 229 constituencies in 2019) and 266 constituencies (41% of all seats) saw an MP elected with less than 40% of votes. Many more seats are seeing more than two parties get sizable vote shares, which, under First Past the Post, reduces the eventual mandate for the winning candidate.

85% of all constituencies have an MP who won less than 50% of the vote

Chart shows the percentage of the vote won by the winning candidate in each constituency, by party. All the dots to the left of the middle line are constituencies won on less than 50% of the vote.

Our First Past the Post system cannot cope with or reflect the ways in which voters are expressing their democratic preferences. We need to move to a proportional representation system, which can do the job of representing people’s votes in the way they deserve.