15. How Geography Decisively Shaped the Outcome of the 2024 Election

Psephological records fell like ninepins at the 2024 election. The Conservative Party, founded nearly two centuries ago, recorded its worst ever result, both in terms of votes (24% in Great Britain) and seats (121). Yet their principal opponents, Labour, won an overall majority with a lower share of the vote (35%) than any previous majority government. Consequently, the combined share of the vote for the two parties that have dominated British politics for 100 years – 58% – was the lowest at any election since 1922, that is, since the first election at which Labour displaced the then Liberal Party as the principal challenger to the Conservatives. On the back of this weak performance by the two largest parties, the Liberal Democrats secured the highest tally of seats (72) that they or their predecessor, the Liberal Party, had secured since 1923. Yet it was ‘fourth’ parties – that is, those other than Conservative, Labour or the Liberal Democrats – rather than the Liberal Democrats themselves (who won just 13% of the vote) that collectively registered a record vote share (28%), with one such party in particular, Reform UK, winning the highest share of the vote ever secured by an individual fourth party (15%). This achievement was reflected in turn in more fourth-party MPs (14) being elected in England than at any election since 1918. Overall, including the 18 members elected in Northern Ireland, a total of 117 MPs were elected under labels other than Conservative or Labour, again the highest number since 1923.