On election night in 2024, the headlines celebrated a Labour landslide. Crowds cheered, pundits predicted a bold new direction, and the idea of a strong majority government dominated the conversation. But as the confetti settled, a quieter question lingered: how many people actually voted for Labour, and what does that mean for the stability of the government?

Labour secured 9,708,816 votes, just 33.7 % of the national vote. Yet it ended up with 411 out of 650 seats in the House of Commons, roughly 63 % of the seats. That sharp gap between vote share and seat share is at the heart of a problem that First Past the Post (FPTP) consistently produces: a government can look commanding in numbers, while its actual support among voters is far more limited.

Explore the results on our 2024 election dashboard

Today we have published our in-depth report on the 2024 General Election, A System Out of Step.

The General Election in 2024 was not only the most disproportional election in British electoral history, but one of the most disproportional seen anywhere in the world. Underneath this headline lies a story – one of a volatile electorate, fragmenting party system and an electoral system that cannot keep up. The result for voters, and for parties, is a system out of step.

Read the report A System out of Step: The 2024 General Election

In July 2024, at a time when candidates were still fighting for their seats, we reported on donations made to political parties during the first 3 weeks of campaigning for the 2024 general election. Now Labour have secured their victory, the full figures for the ‘prepoll period’ – spanning from May 30th to election day – have been released by the Electoral Commission.

Labour received by far the most donations

A look at the final weeks reveals that the Labour Party (combined with the Co-operative Party) racked up £9.8 million worth of donations by election day, more than five times that reported by the Conservative Party over the same time frame. The Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Reform UK continued to tie virtually neck and neck with final sums of £1.9 million, £1.7 million, and £1.6 million, respectively. The total sums donated to other parties were far lower; next in line were the Green Party, accepting £160,000, and the Scottish National Party with £127,998. *

Why true donation figures are likely to be higher

These numbers by themselves however don’t paint a full picture of party finances. For one, sometimes parties are late in submitting donations accepted during the prepoll period. After the 2019 general election, the Electoral Commission opened multiple investigations into incomplete or late submissions.

Secondly, only donations large enough to reach a certain threshold need to be officially reported. In 2023, this amount was raised from £7,500 to £11,180, possibly leaving a bigger proportion of donations undisclosed. Tallying all parties’ donations together, the total amount reported during the 2024 prepoll period was £15.2 million. It is noteworthy that this number is half the £30.7 million reported during the 2019 general election campaign.

However, the year of 2019 saw an unprecedented surge in reported donations, with the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and the Brexit Party (now Reform UK) all receiving record breaking amounts for their parties since donations first began being documented in 2001.

The landscape of UK party financing has been evolving

What this highlights is that donations made during any one campaign offer only a snapshot into wider trends – trends that are most revealing when looked at over a number of years.

For example, although accepting far less than Labour during the immediate build up to the election, the Conservative Party had been boosted by huge sums earlier in the year. In the first quarter of 2024, the Conservatives received £8.8 million, Labour £7.4 million, the Liberal Democrats £2.5 million, and Reform UK £25,000.

In fact, the increase of money flowing into Labour is a stark change of trend for UK party financing. Between 2001 and 2019, the UK saw a rapid growth rate in the total donations made to political parties overall, even when accounting for factors such as inflation. What’s more is that this growth has been disproportionately driven by an increase in donations from wealthy individuals, or “mega-donors”.

Over the years the Conservatives have benefited the most from this growth while Labour saw a decline in donations, particularly those of the mega-donor type, between 2010 and 2019.

This makes it even more striking that during their latest campaign Labour took in £6.7 million from mega-donors, making up 68.5% of their total prepoll tally. This amount is about 42 times more than the £159,442 they took in from the same type of donors during their 2019 campaign. The tide has turned with an influx of wealthy individuals now backing Labour, some of whom previously donated to the Conservatives.

More donations reported from Unincorporated Associations in this election

The £1.9 million in donations received by the Conservatives during the 2024 campaign included 52.3% from wealthy individuals, along with 26.5% from companies.

More remarkable perhaps was how a remaining 20.0% came from Unincorporated Associations (UAs). Although a permissible donor type, UAs have, for good reason, attracted suspicion about their involvement in the funding of political parties. Transparency is the norm for most UK donors. Yet, with less disclosure requirements, the origins of money coming from UAs is far murkier.

In 2019, UAs donated £98,500 during the build-up to the December election, with the Conservatives taking £88,000 and Labour the remaining £10,500. Or, at least, these are the donations we can know of, in that they totalled above the £7,500 reporting threshold. This time around – with the higher threshold in place – the Conservatives were the only party to report donations from UAs, accepting a total of £373,500; about 4 times the 2019 amount.

With their opaque internal finances, it’s becoming ever more vital we close the UA loophole in our regulation.

Question marks remain over the influence of big donors

Election period or not, the more money a party receives over time, the more they have available to spend on hiring staff, policy development, advertising, hosting events for members, and so on. More money does not, however, guarantee electoral success. For example, in the run-up to the 2019 general election Lord David Sainsbury made the single biggest political donation in history, giving £8m to the Liberal Democrats. However, the party went on to make a net loss of seats at the general election.

Still, it appears that over the years the landscape of UK party financing has been shifting. As many big donors redirect their funds to Labour, questions persist over the influence and motives of some wealthy individuals, along with other non-elected entities and their large investments into our political parties.

*Numbers calculated by the ERS using data made available through the Electoral Commission donations search tool.

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The dust is settling on the results of the 2024 UK general election. We have a Labour government for the first time since 2010, with a majority of seats almost as big as Tony Blair’s landslide of 1997. 

Beneath the surface of the overall result, however, there is much to explore. You can do this for yourself using our new 2024 general election dashboard – where you can investigate results at constituency, regional and national level. 

To kick off, here are four notable things from our analysis of the general election results. 

1. This was the most disproportional UK general election result in history

On the day after the general election, we crunched the numbers on the disparity between the number of votes and seats won by each party and we concluded that this was the most disproportional general election on record. The BBC Verify service backed up our findings. An example of this disproportionality is the fact that Labour won almost two-thirds of the MPs, with just one-third of votes. 

2. Fewer than 15% of MPs were elected with over half of the votes in their constituency

Just 96 of the 650 MPs were elected with a majority of votes in their area. There was just one constituency (Harrow East) where a Conservative MP received over half of the votes. This means that in 554 constituencies (85% of all seats), more people voted for losing candidates than voted for the winning candidate.

Under our First-Past-The-Post system (FPTP), a candidate needs just one more vote than the second-placed candidate, no matter how low their vote share. Overall, well over half of people (58%) voted for losing candidates. 

3. Wild results in Scotland

Over recent general elections, Scotland has seen some wild fluctuations in general election outcomes. In 2015, the Scottish National Party (SNP) won all but three seats in Scotland, with 50% of the votes. In 2024, they have been reduced to just 9 seats (16% of Scotland’s seats) despite still receiving 30% of votes in Scotland.

Meanwhile, Labour, who finished just 5 points ahead of the SNP in terms of votes (35%), picked up 37 Scottish seats (65% of all Scottish seats). This is because the SNP’s vote share was evenly spread across Scotland. They achieved close to 30% in many seats and came second in every single seat that they did not win. However, they could not get across the FPTP line in many places. This meant that despite receiving far fewer votes across Scotland, the Liberal Democrats (10% of votes; 6 seats) and the Conservatives (13% of votes; 5 seats) each picked up nearly as many Scottish MPs as the SNP did, as they had pockets of strength where they could get over the FPTP line. 

4. Very different outcomes for smaller GB-wide parties

Liberal Democrat voters have historically suffered under FPTP, failing to see their votes translated into adequate representation in the House of Commons. For example, at the 2019 general election, the Liberal Democrats received 336,038 votes per seat won, whereas the Conservatives received just 38,264 votes per seat.

In 2024, however, the Liberal Democrats had a more vote that was more efficiently spread than the Conservatives. The Liberal Democrats achieved an MP for every 48,877 votes received, whereas the same figure for the Conservatives was 56,422 votes. This resulted in the unprecedented situation of the Liberal Democrats’ vote share and seat share being a closer match than the Conservatives’ vote and seat share. The Lib Dems received 11% of MPs from 12% of votes, whereas the Conservatives received 19% of MPs from 24% of votes. The Lib Dems were able to achieve this by focusing their efforts on areas of strength, mainly in southern England, and took advantage of the collapse in the Conservatives’ vote to win a record-breaking 72 MPs.

It was a very different story for the votes of other GB-wide parties who received more than 5% of votes. Despite receiving almost 600,000 more votes than the Liberal Democrats, Reform UK won just 5 seats (14% of votes but just 1% of seats). Meanwhile, the Green Party, despite making a number of breakthroughs still won only 4 seats (0.6% of seats, despite a record-breaking 7% of votes). Reform UK received 821,332 votes per MP elected and the Green Party received 485,814 votes per MP elected. 

Seats in Parliament should match how we vote

We need to end these random results thrown up by our broken First Past the Post system and make sure voters get the proper representation that their votes demand. Proportional Representation is an idea whose time has come. 

Add your name to our call for a fair electoral system

Change. That was the driving message of Labour’s successful general election campaign, and change was very much on the agenda for the ERS Comms team (as far as the electoral system goes) as we’ve been kept busy with requests over the last few weeks of the campaign.

On election night

We’ve spent the last few months meeting journalists to discuss what could happen, and to make sure they understood the background on our issues.

Across the evening of the general election, whilst many of you were watching the exit poll come in, we were busy briefing journalists and commentators with the unexpected situations that our voting system often throws up. This original research was used across the main coverage, including Channel 4, the BBC, and Sky News. Our briefings also made its way into an episode of the chart topping political podcast, The Rest is Politics.

After the election

Post election, we have toured TV studios and papers to give journalists and the public the info they need to digest the election results. Our research team found that the 2024 general election results were the most disproportionate in British electoral history. It was an evening of firsts for other reasons too for example, this election was the first ever which saw four parties receiving 10%+ of the vote share.

Armed with this work, we arranged  for our Chief Executive, Darren Hughes, to go onto BBC Radio 4, BBC 5 Live, Times Radio  and the BBC Breakfast sofa to make the case for  proportional representation. We even had our research confirmed by BBC Verify.

The 2024 General Election saw in a Labour Government and a brand-new cohort of MPs (335 new MPs) elected; but with all this churn how representative is our House of Commons? Before the election we published analysis of the candidates standing for election showing that only 31% of selected candidates were women. Let’s see how many were elected…

At the end of the last parliament, the UK had only ever had 564 women MPs, not enough to fill the House of Commons once over. But, with the 129 new women MPs elected on Thursday 4^th July we have finally managed to fill the chamber once over (with 43 extra!).

The House of Commons is slowly creeping towards gender parity; however we are still lackadaisical in our approach to achieving gender parity in our elected bodies, leaving it up to parties to field women candidates rather than ensuring that women are on the ballot paper via other mechanisms such as gender quotas.

Read our report Pursuing Parity: Examining Gender Quotas Across Electoral Systems here.

No party stood a gender equal slate of candidates, and this is reflected in the make up of the House of Commons, 40% of current MPs are women (263 of 650). Whilst there are many other achievements to celebrate such as the first ever women Chancellor, the most gender diverse cabinet ever (11 of 24), the most state educated cabinet ever (22 of 24) and the most Black women ever elected.

There are still glaring gaps in our knowledge on the diversity of candidates at present there is no legal obligation for parties or candidates to declare the diversity of candidates yet many already collect this data internally. This data is important as it will increase knowledge on under-represented groups and where efforts should be focused to ensure our democracy and our elected bodies are representative of the diversity of the UK.

If we are to rely on parties are the drivers for diversifying representation in political life, then there must be a mechanism for holding parties to account for their efforts to do so. Section 106 of the Equality Act 2010 would require political parties to publish diversity data on candidates standing in elections to the House of Commons, Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly. The legislation already exists, it just needs to be enacted.

The enactment of Section 106 would compel parties to publish diversity data on their candidates for public office.

Add your name to demand that Women get their fair share.

Women make up 40% of parliament – it’s just not good enough

In the days since the election, I have been touring TV and radio studios making the case for proportional representation and talking about how First Past the Post is failing millions of voters. The fact we have just witnessed the most disproportional general election on record has thrown a spotlight onto our electoral system like never before.

One thing I have noticed about the debate surrounding electoral reform is that it often descends into a squabble over who’s up and who’s down. The arguments get reduced to purely which parties would benefit from which voting systems.

But that’s the wrong way of looking at it, the only people that the electoral system should be biased towards are the voting public. They are the most important part of any election, and the voting system needs to ensure their voice is heard as clearly as possible by ensuring parliament accurately represents how they voted.

And the results are out. This election has the biggest difference ever between how we voted and the MPs that now represent us.

This was the first election ever where four parties got over 10% of the vote share. It is clear that the British public is already voting as if we have a proportional system.

 You can explore the results on our dashboard

From the dissolution of Parliament through to polling day, political parties are legally required to report any large sums of money they receive in donations. Within the first three weeks of campaigning for the upcoming general election, parties accepted over £12 million. Considering how they are polling, it is perhaps unsurprising that from this hefty sum, £8.8 million poured into Labour (including donations made to the Co-operative Party). The Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Reform UK captured most of the rest in roughly equal amounts; the Conservatives took in £1.2 million, while the Lib Dems and Reform UK received just under £1 million each.*

Pre-poll disclosure law exists to provide transparency to regulators and voters alike, making it quicker and easier to spot lawbreaking and corruption.

What counts as a large sum, however, was revised in 2023, raising the threshold from £7,500 to £11,180. Although justified by the government as accounting for inflation, this change was met by the ERS and many others with widespread concern. It could, for example, make it easier for some donations to fly under the radar, preventing opportunities for public scrutiny. The decision also jarred uncomfortably with awareness that voter’s faith in the transparency of campaign finance has been declining over recent years.

Funds tend to flow towards power

Tracking donations during a campaign offers a window into what drives financial backing in politics. For the most part, money flows where success is expected. In the first three weeks of the current campaign, for example, Labour received 72% of donations reported by all parties.

In contrast, by polling day on the 12^th of December in 2019, the Conservatives had racked up £19.4 million in support, making up 63% of all donations reported across the campaign.

Poll predictions are perhaps not the only driver of financial support. The issue of Brexit attracted over £4 million into Reform UK (then, the Brexit Party) in 2019, even with the Conservatives pushing ‘Get Brexit Done’ as their central message. Reform is also doing well this year on donations, tying neck and neck with the Lib Dems and the Conservatives, despite being predicted to only take a handful of seats in the Commons next week at best.

However, a look at the last two elections makes it apparent that the party widely expected to win is likely to receive far more donations during the pre-poll period than any other party.

Some donations are more transparent than others

The most notoriously untransparent of donors are unincorporated associations. These make up a relatively small – but still sizeable – chunk of total donations reported. During the first three weeks of this campaign, the Conservatives received £249,000 worth of support from them.

Ensuring only UK based entities can donate is an important protective barrier against foreign interference in our elections. Still, unincorporated associations face fewer requirements than other donors when it comes to making their sources known, potentially leaving a door open to possible influence. Stricter rules would better ensure only UK-based entities can donate.

Those facing more rigorous checks are individual donors, companies and Trade Unions, who together make up the majority of large-sum donations to political parties. In the first three weeks of campaigning this year, Labour accepted £6.2 million from individual donors, £2 million from Trade Unions, and £520,000 from companies.

The unknown influence of big donors

This begs the question, what influence do big donors have on our politics? Unlike the US and many democracies across Europe, the UK does not ban companies with public contracts from donating to political parties, or big donors from winning them.

Last week The Guardian released an article bringing public attention to how billions of pounds worth of government and NHS contracts granted since 2016 went to companies linked with Conservative party donors. By their calculations, the donors received 150 times more in profit than what they donated in support.

In the article, a Conservative Party spokesperson stated, correctly, that these associations are not evidence of legal wrongdoing. Yet, this very fact stresses the point we wish to make. While it is true donor-party links are not alone evidence of corruption, allowing for a clear conflict of interest weakens our protections against it.

Paired with increasing thresholds on anonymous donations, the laws as they stand are unlikely to reassure any voter already sceptical about the transparency of campaign finance.

Our laws could be stronger

A look at the vast amounts of money donated during this general election campaign brings back into sharp focus the need to reconsider our laws. Extending current transparency requirements to cover more donations, particularly those from unincorporated associations, and increasing the powers of the Electoral Commission to ensure legal compliance, are just a few steps out of many that can be taken to further secure both the integrity our elections and the strength of our democracy.

*Numbers calculated by the ERS using data made available through the Electoral Commission donations search tool. Only donations from weeks one to three have so far been made available for the 2024 general election pre-poll period.

Two, rather similar, articles came out today on the likely impact of small swings in the vote on the results of the general election. In the Times, they identified 130,000 voters in 100 seats that could change the result for all of us from a 200-seat Labour majority and a hung parliament. In the Financial Times, similar research found 120 seats where the margin of victory is expected to be fewer than 5 percentage points – small swings in these seats could decide if the Conservatives win 146 seats, or 44…

The ‘quirks’ of our ‘odd’ electoral system

As the Times said in their piece “first-past-the-post is a strange electoral system where tiny changes in the tightest constituencies can produce chaotic results.” Others have described results like these as due to a ‘quirk’ of Westminster’s voting system.

A ‘quirky’ feature of our elections is candidates wearing big rosettes, like so many prize ponies. Let’s be clear, there is nothing quirky, odd or strange about an electoral system that consistently produces results that are way out of sync with the way we vote. The results of this election will decide the future path of the country.

People are so used to the usual pattern of general elections, that things that would seem outrageous in any other countries are treated as just normal. It should never become normal that the vast majority of voters make no difference to the result.

They count all the votes, but most have no impact

This isn’t a new thing. In the 2017 General Election, Theresa May famously lost her majority. But the Conservatives could have won an absolute majority on the basis of just 533 extra votes in the nine most marginal constituencies. A working majority could have been achieved on just 75 additional votes in the right places. Two very different outcomes based on less than 0.0017 percent of voters choosing differently.

Why do so few votes make a difference in UK elections?

The problem with elections in the UK is that they are actually 650 individual elections. Rather than trying to represent the diversity of opinions in your local area, just one MP is elected to represent everyone in a constituency – even if the majority of voters didn’t vote for them.

Votes cast for a candidate that didn’t win end up making no difference in Westminster. Added up across the whole country it means that millions of voters aren’t represented in Westminster. But also, to become an MP, a candidate just needs to beat the second placed candidate by a single vote, so if they win any more votes beyond this level, those votes don’t make any difference either.

Most voters fall into these two categories – if they had stayed at home, the result would have been exactly the same. When so many votes have no impact, the few that do matter have all the power.

We need a fair, predictable and proportional voting system

First Past the Post has been an engine of instability for years. A system designed for an era when everyone voted for the Whigs or the Tories simply doesn’t work when people vote for lots of different parties.

The one-person-takes-all nature of First Past the Post encourages short-termism and quick fixes, as in each election the incentive is to say anything to win over the handful of votes they need to win. Parties fall into factionalism as the route to power is seizing control of a party that already exists, as there is no viable way for new parties to win seats in line with their support.

Add your name to our call for a predictable and proportional voting system