Britain Votes: The General Election of 2024 - A special edition of our Parliamentary Affairs journal

Journal

Britain Votes: The General Election of 2024 - A special edition of our Parliamentary Affairs journal

7 Dec 2025

The general election of 2024 was a record-breaking election. It was a contest that produced the highest swing in the post-war era, delivering a Labour landslide and reducing the Conservatives to their lowest ever level of parliamentary representation. This special edition of our journal, Parliamentary Affairs, explains how and why this remarkable electoral turnaround was achieved.

Britain Votes: The 2024 General Election brings together contributions from leading electoral scholars including Professor Sir John Curtice, Professor Tim Bale, Professor Eunice Goes, Professor Ailsa Henderson, Professor James Mitchell, Professor Justin Fisher, and Professor Philip Cowley. It is edited by Professor Alistair Clark, Dr Louise Thompson and Professor Stuart Wilks-Heeg.

A few chapters are free to read for a limited time below. You can purchase the book at all good bookshops or online from Oxford University Press.

The editors also discussed the book’s key findings on our podcast, which you can listen to below.

The best way to subscribe to our Parliamentary Affairs journal is through our Premium Membership offer.

Free to read chapters

A record-breaking election

Alistair Clark, Louise Thompson, and Stuart Wilks-Heeg (Editors)

A striking feature of the 2024 contest was the number of electoral records it established. Taken together, these paint a picture of remarkable volatility. The turnaround from an eighty-seat majority for one party to a majority of 174 for another was unprecedented. The 11% swing from the Conservatives to Labour is the highest in the post-war era. There were also far-reaching changes to the UK’s legal and institutional framework prior to the election and the election was also fought on a new set of constituency boundaries.

Read the editors’ introduction

The electoral system: All a question of geography

John Curtice

There is much to unpack about how Britain’s electoral system operated in 2024. Why did Labour secure well over 60% of the seats on barely more than one-third of the vote? How were the Liberal Democrats, hitherto the party that had lost out most and most often from the system, suddenly able to secure almost their proportionate share of the seats? And what are the implications of such an unprecedented outcome for the debate about electoral reform?

Read this chapter

Voices from the edge make breakthrough in British politics: The Greens, Reform UK, and independents

Lynn Bennie and Anders Widfeldt

In 2024 the two main parties received less than 60% of the vote for the first time since universal suffrage, and the spread of parliamentary seats amongst other parties was broader than ever before. Six independents, five Reform UK candidates and four Greens became MPs, contributing to this parliamentary diversity. Nigel Farage became an MP at the eighth attempt, the Greens quadrupled their seats, and the Labour party’s perceived position on the Israel-Hamas conflict cost it a handful of seats to independents.

Read this chapter

Party finance: Labour exploits its advantage

Justin Fisher

The 2024 general election took place in the context of important legislative change related to party finance, together with Labour’s growing popularity ultimately being reflected in significant growth in its income as the election approached. The combination of increased campaign spending limits and Labour’s relative success in fundraising in the months leading up to the election meant that Labour was better able to exploit its ability to raise income and spend accordingly in the election campaign. By way of contrast, both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats were financially far worse off than they had been in 2019.

Read this chapter

A time to take stock

Stuart Wilks-Heeg, Alistair Clark and Louise Thompson (Editors)

General elections provide an important health check for any democracy. There were five features of the 2024 election that should be seen as causes for concern:

the extent to which candidates suffered from intimidation during the election;
the fall in turnout by 7.5 points to 59.8%, the second lowest since 1945;
the disproportionality of the election result;
the increased volatility of UK general elections; and
the role and reliability of opinion polling in an increasingly complex electoral environment.

Read about the five causes of concern

Listen to the Britain Votes 2024 editors discuss the findings on our podcast

Listen on your favourite podcast app

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All the chapters in the book

Introduction

A record-breaking election, Alistair Clark, Louise Thompson and Stuart Wilks-Heeg

The Results and Election Context

The results: How Britain voted in 2024, Hannah Bunting
The electoral system: All a question of geography, John Curtice

Political Parties

‘Come, Armageddon, come’: The Conservatives, Sam Power, Paul Webb, and Tim Bale
The Labour Party under Keir Starmer: Plotting the route to a shallow landslide, Eunice Goes
Yellow fever returns: The 2024 Liberal Democrat campaign, David Cutts and Andrew Russell
Voices from the edge make breakthrough in British politics: : The Greens, Reform UK, and independents, Lynn Bennie and Anders Widfeldt

Territorial Dimensions

Shifting sands: Sources of voter volatility in the 2024 UK General Election in Scotland, Ailsa Henderson and James Mitchell
The 2024 UK General Election in Wales, Jac M. Larner and Richard Wyn Jones
Northern Ireland: Sinn Féin completes a hat-trick, Jonathan Tonge and Stuart Wilks-Heeg

Campaign Themes

Party finance: Labour exploits its advantage, Justin Fisher
The first TikTok election? Social media, generative AI, and data-driven campaigning in the 2024 UK General Election, Filip Biały and Rachel Gibson
There may be trouble ahead: Women’s representation, voters, and issues in the 2024 election campaign, Emily Harmer and Rosalynd Southern
Ethnic minority voters and the 2024 General Election, Nicole S. Martin
Tax, trip-ups, and transgressions: Reporting the 2024 UK General Election, David Deacon, David Smith, and Dominic Wring
Breweries, bricklaying, and bungee jumping: Understanding the 2024 campaign trail, Alia Middleton and David Cutts
An inexperienced parliament, Philip Cowley

Conclusion

A time to take stock, Stuart Wilks-Heeg, Alistair Clark and Louise Thompson

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