United Kingdom general elections

United Kingdom general elections are the elections held when the Members of Parliament (MPs) forming the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom are elected. Terms last for a maximum of five years and can be ended early by a dissolution of Parliament. The next one is due on or before 3 June 2010.

Candidates aim to win particular geographic constituencies in the United Kingdom (UK). Each constituency elects one MP by the first past the post system of election. At the 2001 general election, there were 659 constituencies (typically called "seats"), and thus 659 MPs. At the 2005 general election there were 646 due to boundary changes in Scotland.

Almost all candidates are members of a political party and the majority of voters in the UK choose who to vote for based on the candidates' parties, rather than the personalities or opinions of the individual candidates.

Timing

A general election must take place before each parliamentary term begins. Since the maximum term of a parliament is five years, the interval between successive general elections can exceed that period by no more than the combined length of the election campaign and time for the new parliament to assemble (typically five to eight weeks). The actual election may be held at any time before the end of the five-year term. The five years runs from the first meeting of Parliament following the election. The timing of an election is at the discretion of the incumbent Prime Minister. This timing is usually political, and thus if a government is popular then the election is often "called" after around four years in power.

The Prime Minister asks the Monarch to dissolve Parliament by Royal Proclamation. The Proclamation also orders the issue of the formal Writs of Election which require an election to be held in each constituency. The election is held 17 working days after the date of the Proclamation, as regulated by the Representation of the People Act 1983, s. 23 and Schedule 1 ("Parliamentary election rules"), rule 1 ("Timetable").

Since 1935 every general election has been held on a Thursday. Of the 17 general elections between 1945 and 2005, four each were held in October, June, and May, and two were held in February.

The Cabinet Office imposes Purdah before elections. This is a period of roughly six weeks in which Government Departments are not allowed to communicate with members of the public about any new or controversial Government initiatives (such as modernisation initiatives, administrative and legislative changes).

Eligibility

Anyone legally resident in the UK who is a citizen of the UK, the Republic of Ireland, or of a Commonwealth country, and who is 18 or over on the date of the election is eligible to vote, provided they are on the electoral register, unless they are currently a member of the House of Lords, imprisoned for a criminal offence, mentally incapable of making a reasoned judgement, or have been convicted of corrupt or illegal practices in connection with an election within the previous five years. Voting is not compulsory.

Members of the Royal Family, including the Monarch, are eligible to vote, although in practice it would be seen as unconstitutional if they ever did. UK citizens who have moved abroad remain eligible to vote for 15 years thereafter. They would vote for the MP of the constituency in which they lived before they moved abroad. This is also applicable to people who were under 18 before they moved abroad; when they reach 18 they can vote. "Service voters" – including forces personnel, diplomats and other public servants resident overseas – are also eligible. Voters must appear on the electoral register in order to vote; they can now be added to the register until eleven working days before the election. The electoral register in 2000 listed 44,423,440 people registered to vote in the UK, of whom 36,994,211 were in England.

The right of Irish and Commonwealth citizens to vote is strange by the standards of elections across the world, as citizenship and the right to vote are usually synonymous. It is a legacy of the Representation of the People Act 1918, which limited the vote to British subjects. At that time, "British subjects" included the people of Ireland — then part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland — and all other parts of the British Empire. Though Ireland (see Ireland Act 1949) and the colonies became independent nations, their citizens have retained the right to vote in the UK.

System

General elections are run under a first-past-the-post election system, in terms of the number of MPs from a particular party. If one party has an overall majority of MPs, they will form the next government, and their leader becomes Prime Minister. If no party has an overall majority, either two or more parties will form a coalition government, with enough total MPs for a majority, typically with the leader of the larger party becoming Prime Minister, or a single party will attempt to form a government and survive through informal alliances and agreements with other parties. Passing government legislation without a majority in the House of Commons — as happened in the last months of the John Major government — can be difficult.

The system is not one of proportional representation, and so parties with significant fractions of the vote nationally can easily end up with very few MPs. This aspect of the system attracts criticism, particularly from parties that would perform better under a PR system, such as the Liberal Democrats. On the other hand, supporters of the system cite it as a reason for the lack of extremist parties in mainstream UK politics, the infrequency of coalitions, and the sense of a direct connection between constituencies and their MP.

Society

In the UK general elections are usually affairs in which public opinion changes gradually from general election from election. However this can often have dramatic effects due to the first-past-the-post election system as support for a given political party tips sufficiently to give a landslide result. Currently the Labour party under Prime Minister Tony Blair has had two such landslides, giving power in parliament that has rivalled the legacy of Margaret Thatcher.

Post-election

Polls close at 10 pm and the votes are, in most constituencies, counted immediately. The earliest results are declared by about 11 pm, with most having been declared by 3 or 4 am; some constituencies do not declare their results until the following day. In Northern Ireland the count itself does not begin until the next morning, with results being announced from early afternoon onwards.

When all of the results are known, or when one party achieves an absolute majority of the seats in the House of Commons, the first response comes from the current (and possibly outgoing) Prime Minister. If a majority in the new Parliament has been achieved by their party, they remain in office without the need for reconfirmation or reappointment — no new 'term' of office is started. If a majority has not been achieved, and it is obvious that the opposition has the numbers to form a government, the Prime Minister submits a resignation to the Monarch. The Monarch then commissions the Leader of the Opposition to form a new government. The Prime Minister has the option of attempting to remain in power even if seats have been lost. The subsequent Queen's Speech (i.e., outline of the proposed legislative programme) offers a chance for the House of Commons to cast a vote of confidence or no confidence in the government through accepting or rejecting the Queen's Speech.

The last Prime Minister who, having failed to win a majority, opted not to resign immediately was Edward Heath, in 1974. However, after initial negotiations with the Liberal Party failed to provide a coalition deal, he resigned, allowing Queen Elizabeth II to commission Labour leader Harold Wilson to form an administration. Until the Prime Minister reacts to the election result, either by deciding to remain on or resign, the Monarch has no role. Only if the Prime Minister resigns can the Monarch then commission someone else to form a government. Thus Margaret Thatcher, who was Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990, was only asked to form a government once. Similarly, Tony Blair has only ever been commissioned to form a government once, in 1997. After each election, having remained in power, a Prime Minister may take the option to engage in a major or minor reshuffle of ministers.

The largest party not in government becomes the Official Opposition, known as Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition. Any smaller parties not in government are collectively known as "the opposition".

Election results

Note that all elections until 1832 had very restricted suffrage, until 1918 it remained non-universal.

Note: A negative majority means that there was a hung parliament (or minority parliament) following that election. For example, in the 1929 election, Labour was 42 seats short of forming a majority, and so its majority is listed as −42.

See also

• Elections in the United Kingdom (including the history of general elections)
• List of UK by-elections
• A list of Prime Ministers
• United Kingdom Parliamentary constituencies
• Historical anomalies (now abolished) of the British electoral system
  • University constituency
  • "Rotten boroughs"
• Election Day
• UK topics

External links

• Electoral Commission (official WWW site)
• Who can vote? – Electoral Commission factsheet