The overall result of a new Labour Government from the UK General Election 2024 may not have been a huge surprise to many, but the breakdown of results and the historic nature of the election result broke new records.
Professor Jane Green, Co-Director of the British Election Study and Director of the Nuffield Politics Research Centre, summarises the election result following her analysis for ITV News on the Election Night programme:
“The 2024 was a record breaker. The highest ever fragmentation (splintering of support across large and small parties), the lowest two-party share, the highest disproportionality (the gap between votes and seats gained), almost certainly the most volatile election in terms of people switching their votes between elections, and a breakthrough election for the Greens, Reform UK and the biggest ever Liberal Democrat seat increase. The Conservatives experienced a total wipe-out in Wales, and Labour mounted their recovery in Scotland. UK politics was on a clear trajectory towards greater volatility and fragmentation up to the general election in 2015. The 2024 election sees us very clearly return to that trend, after the Brexit elections and party competition temporarily diverted it.”
Watch Election Explained: How Labour won the election in a landslide without a huge predicted jump in vote share.
The election night team were able to use insights from the British Election Study pre-campaign survey, which will be publicly available in the early autumn.
Dr James Griffiths, Research Fellow, BES, said:
“It was a fantastic opportunity to play a part on election night, there were some surprise results, and I’m looking forward to investigating the role that disengagement, new constituency boundaries, and potential tactical voting played in this election.”
The following surveys will be released in the latter half of 2024:
- Campaign survey (wave 28)
- Post-election survey (wave 29)
- Post-election random probability survey with Ipsos.
For more information about the British Election Study visit the BES Impact page.