General Election, 4 July 2024

On 4 July 2024, the United Kingdom (UK) held a general election for the 650 members of the House of Commons (lower house of parliament). A “First Past the Post” system is used for the election, whereby one seat represents a voting area. The candidate of the party with the most votes is elected as Prime Minister (UK Parliament 2024). The UK’s electoral management body is the Electoral Commission, an independent authority consisting of ten commissioners elected by parliament which oversees the elections (ACE n.d.; Electoral Commission 2024). Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called the election several months earlier than many expected (Prince 2024).

The ruling party’s campaign was beset by difficulties from the start, including a scandal involving bets placed on the timing of the election by insiders who knew the date before it was publicly announced (Smith 2024; Mason 2024; Gordon 2024). 

Amendments to the Elections Act modified voting arrangements, extending the vote to citizens who have resided outside the UK for over 15 years. Sanctions for breaching ballot secrecy and undue influence of voters were toughened (CPA 2024). This was the first general election requiring voters to have photo ID. This new system was first applied to the 2023 local elections in England, when at least 14,000 voters were unable to meet this requirement in time to vote, disproportionately affecting ethnic minorities, the unemployed, younger and disabled people. Awareness of the rule prior to attending the polling station was also lower among these social groups and correlated with lower income localities (Electoral Commission 2023). It has estimated that around 440,000 voters may have been disenfranchised by the new ID requirements in the 2024 general election (Daily Telegraph 2024).

In UK General Elections, voters need to register via post or online. Digital registration puts voters’ data security at some risk (van der Staak and Wolf 2019) –  as demonstrated in 2021 and 2022 when the Electoral Commission faced a cyber-attack and hackers gained access to 40 million voters’ data (Francis and McKiernan 2024). In 2024 the Information Commissioners Office reprimanded the Electoral Commission for not having taken sufficient corrective measures (Vallance 2024). 

Disinformation and the use of generative AI featured in the campaign period, with false messages against both main party leaders in circulation on social media (Spring 2024). Several UK authorities have published guidance materials for voters and electoral candidates on countering disinformation (see: eg., Cabinet Office 2024). However, scholars point out that the UK remains unprepared for evolving threats of this kind (Miron et al. 2024).

Although less than in previous elections, observers noted so-called “family voting” in 21 per cent of all visited polling stations (whereby ballot secrecy is compromised among family members). Another concern was that some voters received their postal votes too late to participate in the election (Democracy Volunteers 2024). In Scotland, the demand for printed supplies caused production breakdowns, prompting individual councils to take measures to mitigate the effects of delayed postal packs (BBC News 2024). There were few reported incidents of election-related violence (Constable 2024) but 56 per cent of election candidates faced some type of harassment during the election period, mostly female candidates or those with an ethnic minority background (Democracy Volunteers 2024). The Commonwealth Parliamentary Association evaluated the electoral process as good or very good overall, but also raised concerns regarding family voting (CPA 2024). 

After 14 years in power, Sunak’s Conservative Party lost the election to the Labour Party and its leader Keir Starmer, who won a majority with 411 of 650 seats (Cracknell et al. 2024). In addition, small parties gained more seats in the parliament than ever before, further eroding the traditional two-party system (Holder and Leatherby 2024). The 2024 election saw a record number and proportion of female MPs. 40.5 per cent of elected MPs were women, compared to 33.8 per cent in 2019  (Allen 2024). 14 per cent of elected MPs belonged to an ethnic minority, making parliament more ethnically diverse than previously (Katwala and Rutter 2024). Turnout was 59.76 per cent, the lowest since 2001 (International IDEA n.d.).