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British Electoral System
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Though this may be a little late, could someone explain the rudiments of the British electoral system to me?
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The UK is divided into 650 constituencies, which are geographical areas of the UK, where the population of each constituency are roughly equal. For example, a big city will have several constitutencies, whereas rural constituencies are geographically larger as fewer people live there.
Each of the constituencies represents one seat in the House of Commons, the lower house of the UK parliament, therefore, the HoC consists of 650 seats.
Within each constituency, anyone can put themselves forward as a prospective parliamentary candidate, which requires a deposit of £1,000, refundably if the candidate receives a certain portion of the vote in that constituency.
Residents of the constituency must register with the local council as eligible to vote - they must be UK or Commonwealth citizens and over the age of 18. The council will then register you as a voter.
When the election is called (every 5 years), residents will be sent instructions of where and when to vote - they mark their choices on the ballot paper and, after 10pm that evening, the votes are counted, with the winning candidate being the one who receives the most votes. That candidate has thus been chosen to represent that constituency in the House of Commons.
In order for a party to win the election, they must achieve an outright majority - ie. 326 of the 650 constituencies in the UK must have been won by that party.
If no party achieves an outright majority, we have what we have at the moment which is a hung parliament. Though there is one constituency still to call its result (one of the candidates died during the campaign, so the vote there has been postponed to 27th May), the results are as follows:
- Conservative; 306 seats
- Labour; 258 seats
- Liberal Democrats; 57 seats
- Other parties; 28 seats
Therefore, even though the Conservatives have the most seats, they do not have an outright majority. The BBC produced a handy flowchart to represent what happens next (Labour are currently the party in power):
Hope that makes sense :thumb:
Usually true, but not always. The PM is the person who the Queen appoints as they can command the support of the majority of MPs in Parliament. This is normally a party leader, but it doesn't have to be, for example Chamberlain remained the leader of the Conservatives in 1940 and Churchill was PM.
On a similar vein Sinn Fein's leader is Gerry Adams, but the Deputy First Minister (in all but name an equal First Minister) is Martin McGuiness