2017 United Kingdom general election

A general election to select Members of Parliament in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom took place on 8th June 2017. It resulted in a hung parliament with the Conservatives returned as a minority government.

Less than two years after the previous nationwide poll, May made a surprise announcement on 18th April to seek an election, having previously stated that this would not be in the interests of the nation in the run up to British exit from the European Union. The election resulted in the cancellation of a by-election - the first time this has happened since 1924.

In April 2017, MPs voted in favour of a motion by the Prime Minister, Theresa May, by 522 to 13 to call an election, in accordance with the requirement of the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act 2011 for a vote by MPs representing two-thirds of constituencies. Parliament was dissolved on 3rd May 2017 by royal proclamation, which also formally called the election, with 650 seats to be filled.

Unusually, local elections took place in much of the country in the middle of the election campaign, giving an alternative predictor to opinion polls. They agreed on bad results for Labour, which were mainly attributed to its far left leader Jeremy Corbyn. The other major feature of the local elections was the collapse in the votes for UKIP, which lost all the seats it was defending and gained just a single seat (though it still has local councillors who were not up for reelection this year) ([1]). This was assumed to be largely because it has achieved its main objective, departure from the European Union, and was expected to benefit mainly the Conservatives; however, early analysis of the election result suggested that many former UKIP voters had backed Labour.

By the deadline on 11 May, about 3300 valid nominations had been received for the 650 seats, from about 73 parties and 187 independents ([2]). Five parties have candidates in a majority of seats: Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat, Green and UKIP. ([3])

Campaigning was suspended for a few days after a deadly terrorist attack in Manchester, and briefly again after another attack in London.

Projected results based on early opinion polls regularly gave large Conservative majorities. At least one predicted Labour's worst result since 1935, and some predicted more Conservative MPs than in any election since 1931. Later in the campaign, opinion polls moved substantially Labour's way. By the end of May, one predicted no overall majority in the new House of Commons. An exit poll conducted on election day correctly predicted that no party would achieve a majority in the House of Commons.