56th United Kingdom general election

United Kingdom general election, 2017

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All 650 seats in the House of Commons 326 seats needed for a majority
Opinion polls
Turnout	68.8% (2.5%)
First party Second party Third party   Leader Theresa May Jeremy Corbyn Nicola Sturgeon Party Conservative Labour SNP Leader since 11 July 2016 12 September 2015 14 November 2014 Leader's seat Maidenhead Islington North Did not stand Last election 330 seats, 36.8% 232 seats, 30.4% 56 seats, 4.7% Seats won 317* 262 35 Seat change 13 30 21 Popular vote 13,636,690 12,877,869 977,568 Percentage 42.3% 40.0% 3.0% Swing 5.5% 9.6% 1.7%   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Leader Tim Farron Arlene Foster Gerry Adams Party Liberal Democrat DUP Sinn Féin Leader since 16 July 2015 17 December 2015 13 November 1983 Leader's seat Westmorland and Lonsdale Did not stand Did not stand Last election 8 seats, 7.9% 8 seats, 0.6% 4 seats, 0.6% Seats won 12 10 7 Seat change 4 2 3 Popular vote 2,371,861 292,316 238,915 Percentage 7.4% 0.9% 0.7% Swing 0.5% 0.3% 0.1%
A map of UK parliamentary constituencies *Seat figure does not include Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow, who was included in the Conservative seat total by some media outlets.
Prime Minister before election Theresa May Conservative Subsequent Prime Minister Theresa May Conservative

Theresa May
Conservative

Theresa May
Conservative

The United Kingdom general election of 2017 took place on Thursday 8 June. Each of the 650 constituencies elected one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons. Under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 an election had not been due until 7 May 2020, but a call by Prime Minister Theresa May for a snap election was ratified by the necessary supermajority in a 522-13 vote in the House of Commons on 19 April 2017.

The Conservative Party (which had governed as a senior coalition partner from 2010 and as a majority government from 2015) was defending a working majority of 17 seats against the Labour Party, the official opposition led by Jeremy Corbyn. May hoped to secure a larger majority for the Conservative Party in order to "strengthen [her] hand in [the forthcoming Brexit] negotiations".

Opinion polls had shown consistent leads for the Conservatives over Labour. From a 20-point lead, the Conservatives' lead began to diminish in the final weeks of the campaign. In a surprising result, the Conservatives made a net loss of 13 seats with 42.3% of the vote (its highest share since 1983), while Labour made a net gain of 30 seats with 40.0% (its highest since 2001). In terms of vote share for the two main parties, this was the closest result since February 1974 and the highest combined share since 1970. Characterised as a return to two-party politics, the Scottish National Party and the Liberal Democrats, the third and fourth largest parties, both lost vote share. The SNP, which won 56 of the 59 Scottish seats in the 2015 general election, lost 21 seats. The Liberal Democrats made a net gain of four seats. UKIP, third largest party in 2015 by number of votes, saw their share reduced from 12.6% to 1.8%. Plaid Cymru gained one seat, giving them four seats. The Green Party retained their single seat. In Northern Ireland the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) won 10 seats, Sinn Féin won seven, and Independent Unionist Sylvia Hermon won one. The Social Democratic and Labour Party and the Ulster Unionist Party lost all their seats. On 26 June 2017, the Conservatives entered into a confidence and supply deal with the DUP.