The general election on Thursday is a pivotal moment for Britain after 14 years of government by the Conservative Party. The last full parliamentary election was in December 2019, when Boris Johnson won a landslide victory for the Conservatives, propelled by his charisma and a promise to “Get Brexit done” after the country’s decision to leave the European Union in a 2016 referendum.
Here’s what to know about Britain’s parliamentary election.
Why is this election important?
Voters will give their verdict Thursday on five tumultuous years of government that have spanned the coronavirus pandemic, the troubled implementation of Brexit, the “partygate” scandal around rule-breaking during pandemic lockdowns by Mr. Johnson and some of his colleagues and the disastrous six-week tenure of Prime Minister Liz Truss.
Polls suggest that the center-left Labour Party is set to return to power after more than a decade in opposition, which would bring a fundamental realignment to British politics.
How does voting work in Britain?
The United Kingdom — which consists of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales — is divided into 650 constituencies.
Voters in each constituency select a candidate to represent them as a member of Parliament, and the political party whose candidates win the most seats usually forms the next government. That party’s leader also becomes prime minister.
To win an overall majority, a party must secure 326 seats. If the top party falls short of that, the outcome is known as a “hung Parliament” and the party can try to form a coalition government with other parties, or reach an informal deal to support what is known as a “minority government.”
In 2010, the Conservatives joined with the Liberal Democrats to form Britain’s first coalition government since World War II, and, in 2017, the Conservatives allied with Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party.
What are the main issues?
The state of Britain’s economy is the top issue for most voters today, according to polls, in the wake of a cost-of-living crisis and record inflation — which reached a peak of 11.1 percent in 2022 and has only recently begun to return to target levels.
The National Health Service, the state-funded health care system that provides free care across the country, is another top priority. A decade of fiscal austerity that began under Prime Minister David Cameron after the 2009 global financial crisis left Britain’s public services deeply underfunded and facing chronic staff shortages. Waiting lists for N.H.S. treatment were already growing before the pandemic, and have since rocketed further upward, a major source of public dissatisfaction.
Immigration comes third in many voters’ lists of top issues, although its importance differs starkly according to party preference. Only 20 percent of Labour voters said it was one of their most pressing national concerns, compared with 65 percent of Conservatives in a recent poll conducted by YouGov.
Who is running, and who is likely to win?
The two largest parties in Britain are the Conservatives, led by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, and the Labour Party, led by Keir Starmer, a former public prosecutor and human rights lawyer.
Labour has maintained a double-digit lead in the polls for more than 18 months and according to one tracker remains 20 points ahead. In that time the Conservatives have suffered stinging losses in parliamentary special elections and elections for mayors and local councils. And while the polls often narrow during an election season, that does not appear to have happened much this time. Analysts believe the Conservatives would have to achieve something close to miraculous now to win even a slim majority.
Harder to predict is the effect of Reform U.K., a small anti-immigration party led by Nigel Farage, a champion of Brexit and a vocal supporter of Donald J. Trump. Reform has risen in the polls in recent weeks, before falling back slightly, and Conservative officials fear it could siphon away supporters from their candidates. Mr. Farage originally said he would not run in the election, but changed course last month when he announced he would run for Parliament in Clacton, a small seaside town where 70 percent of voters chose Brexit in 2016. That has shaken up the race and could help Labour by dividing the right-wing vote.
Two other parties, the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party, made sizable gains in local elections in early May. The Lib Dems, a small centrist party, are well placed to win seats in affluent areas like Surrey, where right-leaning voters find the party more palatable than Labour. That could threaten longstanding Conservative lawmakers such as Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor of the Exchequer, who told The Times that the campaign was “the toughest it’s ever been.”
In Scotland, the Scottish National Party won all but three parliamentary seats in 2015, displacing Labour from one of its traditional strongholds. But a funding scandal and the departure of Nicola Sturgeon as first minister have weakened the party’s support over the past year. Polls now suggest that Labour has a chance of edging out in front of the S.N.P. in the general election, which would ease Mr. Starmer’s path to becoming prime minister.
How do the parties compare?
Most of the parties have outlined their policies in documents known as manifestoes, with Labour promising to bring most rail services into public ownership, to end a tax exemption on private schools and to hire more teachers for state education.
The Conservatives say they would protect pension income for retirees and create a new system of national service for 18-year-olds. They also promise to stop the arrival of migrants in Britain coming on small boats from France by sending asylum seekers on one-way flights to Rwanda. Labour says it would cancel this plan but would create a new border command to “smash” people-smuggling gangs.
On economic policy, the Conservatives offer tax cuts while Labour has pledged not to raise taxation on working families. Given the difficult situation the next government will inherit, one respected research institute, the Institute for Fiscal Studies, has accused both main parties of engaging in a “conspiracy of silence” and ignoring “painful choices” between cutting public spending, increasing borrowing or raising taxes.
If there’s a new prime minister, how does Downing Street prepare?
The change of power in Britain is swift and brutal. If the Conservatives lose the election to Labour, Mr. Sunak would travel to Buckingham Palace on Friday to offer his resignation to King Charles.
At Downing Street, expect to see moving vans arriving and departing quickly because, shortly afterward, Mr. Starmer would make the same journey to see the monarch to be asked to form a government. He would then arrive at Downing Street, make a short speech, and enter Number 10 through its famous black front door to be welcomed by applauding officials before receiving security briefings.
All this will happen in a matter of hours, in which time evidence of Mr. Sunak’s life in Downing Street will have mostly disappeared.
Civil servants have spent months preparing policy briefings for a new prime minister, but the practical aspects of a rushed home move can still prove problematic. Writing about her very brief stay in Downing Street, the former prime minister, Liz Truss, complained that “the place was infested with fleas.” (Dilyn, the dog owned by her predecessor, Boris Johnson, was assumed to be the culprit.)
When will we find out the results?
Just after polls close at 10 p.m. on Thursday, exit-poll results will be announced, based on a survey of thousands of voters after they have cast their ballots.
Exit polls are not always accurate: In Britain’s 1992 and 2015 elections, they predicted a hung Parliament, when in fact the Conservative Party went on to win a majority. But they have become increasingly reliable in the country in recent years and are generally seen as offering a good early indication of how the public has voted.
The first results from a few individual constituencies will be announced from around 11 p.m., and then a steady rhythm of results arrive through the early hours of the next morning. By around 7 a.m., the overall result is usually clear, although some rural seats can be announced later.