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All 650 seats in the House of Commons[1] 326 seats needed for a majority | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Opinion polls | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Registered | 46,354,197 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Turnout | 66.4%[2] (![]() | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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![]() Colours denote the winning party, as shown in the main table of results. † Figure does not include the Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow, who was included in the Conservative seat total by some media outlets. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() Composition of the House of Commons after the election | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The 2015 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 7 May 2015 to elect 650 Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons. It was the first of three general elections to be held under the rules of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 and was the last general election to be held before the United Kingdom voted to end its membership of the European Union (EU) in June 2016. Local elections took place in most areas of England on the same day and is to date the most recent general election to coincide with local elections. The governing Conservative Party, led by Prime Minister David Cameron, won an unexpected victory; opinion polls and political commentators had predicted that the results of the election would cause a second consecutive hung parliament whose composition would be similar to the previous Parliament, which was in effect from the previous national election in 2010. However, opinion polls underestimated the Conservatives, as they won 330 of the 650 seats and 36.9 per cent of the votes, giving them a majority of ten seats.
The opposition Labour Party, led by Ed Miliband, saw a small increase in its share of the vote to 30.4 per cent, but it won 26 fewer seats than in 2010. This gave them 232 MPs. This was the fewest seats the party had won since the 1987 general election, when it had 229 MPs returned. Many senior Labour MPs, including Ed Balls, Douglas Alexander, and Jim Murphy, lost their seats. The Scottish National Party (SNP) won 56 of the 59 Scottish seats and became the third largest party in the House of Commons, mainly at the expense of Labour, who had held the most in the House of Commons at every general election since 1964.
The Liberal Democrats, led by outgoing Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, had their worst result since their formation in 1988, losing 49 of their 57 seats. The Cabinet ministers Vince Cable, Ed Davey, and Danny Alexander lost re-election, whilst Clegg narrowly held his own seat. The UK Independence Party received 12.6 per cent of the vote, displacing the Liberal Democrats as the third most popular party, but won only one seat, Clacton. The party's leader, Nigel Farage, failed to win in South Thanet. The Green Party of England and Wales won its highest ever vote share of 3.8 per cent, and their only MP, Caroline Lucas, retained her seat, Brighton Pavilion.[3] In Northern Ireland, the Ulster Unionist Party returned to the Commons with two seats after a five-year absence, and the Alliance Party lost its only seat of Belfast East, represented by Naomi Long for the party, despite an increase in their vote share. Following the election, Miliband and Clegg resigned their leaderships. Jeremy Corbyn succeeded Miliband as Leader of the Labour Party, while Tim Farron succeeded Clegg as Leader of the Liberal Democrats.
Until the 2024 election, it was thought to have marked a return to the traditional Conservative- and Labour-dominated two-party politics, seen throughout the second half of the 20th century; the SNP began a nine-year domination of Scottish politics. Charles Kennedy, who served as the leader of the Liberal Democrats from 1999 to 2006, made his last public appearance during the election campaign, in which he lost his seat; he died on 1 June 2015.
Notable MPs who retired at this election included the former prime minister Gordon Brown, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling, the former leader of the Conservative Party William Hague, and the former leader of the Liberal Democrats Menzies Campbell. Notable newcomers to the House of Commons included Ian Blackford, the future leader of the SNP in the Commons; Angela Rayner, the future deputy prime minister and deputy leader of the Labour Party; Keir Starmer, the future prime minister and Labour Party leader; and Rishi Sunak, the future prime minister and Conservative leader, who succeeded Hague as MP for Richmond (Yorks). Another future Conservative prime minister, Boris Johnson, who had previously left Parliament in 2008 so he could serve as the mayor of London, returned to Parliament as MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip.
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