2019 United Kingdom general election

2019 United Kingdom general election

12 December 2019
All 650 seats in the House of Commons 326 seats needed for a majority
Opinion polls
Turnout	67.3% ( 1.6 pp)
First party Second party   Leader Boris Johnson Jeremy Corbyn Party Conservative Labour Leader since 23 July 2019 12 September 2015 Leader's seat Uxbridge and South Ruislip Islington North Last election 317 seats, 42.4% 262 seats, 40.0% Seats before 298 242 Seats won 365 202 Seat change 48 60 Popular vote 13,966,565 10,269,076 Percentage 43.6% 32.1% Swing 1.2 pp 7.9 pp   Third party Fourth party   Leader Nicola Sturgeon Jo Swinson Party SNP Liberal Democrats Leader since 14 November 2014 22 July 2019 Leader's seat Did not stand East Dunbartonshire (defeated) Last election 35 seats, 3.0% 12 seats, 7.4% Seats before 35 21 Seats won 48 11 Seat change 13 1 Popular vote 1,242,372 3,696,423 Percentage 3.9% 11.6% Swing 0.9 pp 4.2 pp
A map presenting the results of the election, by party of the MP elected from each constituency.
Prime Minister before election Boris Johnson Conservative Appointed Prime Minister Boris Johnson Conservative

The 2019 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 12 December 2019 under the provisions of the Early Parliamentary General Election Act 2019, and took place over two years after the previous general election in 2017. The governing Conservative Party regained its majority in the House of Commons after having lost it in 2017, while the Labour Party suffered major losses that resulted in them obtaining their lowest proportion of seats since 1935.

The Conservative Party, having failed to reach a majority in the 2017 general election, faced a prolonged parliamentary deadlock over Brexit while it governed in minority with the support of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). In July 2019, Boris Johnson was elected as the Conservative's leader and appointed as Prime Minister, after Theresa May resigned. After Johnson failed to pass through a withdrawal agreement by the end of October, he was forced to call for a snap election, which was ratified with a majority two-thirds in a 438–20 vote in the House of Commons on 31 October 2019. Johnson's aim in the election was to secure a majority in order to accomplish his main goal of taking the United Kingdom out of the European Union by the end of January 2020.

Opinion polls showed a firm lead for the Conservatives against Labour throughout the campaign. The results ultimately saw the Conservatives make a net gain of 48 seats, winning 43.6% of the vote (its highest share since 1983), whereas Labour made a net loss of 60 seats, losing several of its constituencies in Northern England and across the Midlands to the Conservatives. Labour's losses in the general election led Corbyn to announce his resignation as the party's leader. The Scottish National Party made a net gain of 13 seats across Scotland against the Conservatives, mainly due to winning 45% of the vote against their opponent. While the Liberal Democrats earned 11.6% of the votes, leader Jo Swinson was forced to resign after losing her own seat, leaving her party with 11 seats following the election.

The Green Party retained control of their seat, and saw its vote share increased, while in Wales, Plaid Cymru retained its 4 seats with no significant change in vote share. In Northern Ireland, the election saw an increase in elected Nationalist MPs than Unionist MPs. Of the two main parties in the country, Sinn Féin were virtually unchanged by the result, while the DUP suffered the loss of two seats despite winning a larger share of votes. The Social Democratic & Labour Party regained two seats, while the Alliance Party regained a seat, leading both to having a restored presence in the House of Commons.

Background

Due to the impasse about the Brexit withdrawal agreement by 2019, some political commentators considered that an early election to break the deadlock was highly likely. In January 2019, a vote of no confidence in Theresa May's government was called for by the Labour Party, but the motion failed to achieve a majority vote. After May stepped down in the wake of the results of the 2019 European Parliament election, during the first extension granted for negotiations on the withdrawal agreement, the Conservative Party underwent a leadership challenge, leading to Boris Johnson becoming the new prime minister on 23 July 2019. Along with attempting to break the impasse through revising the withdrawal agreement arranged by his predecessor's negotiations, Johnson made three attempts for a snap election under the process defined in the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 (FTPA), which required a two-third supermajority in support of this.

All three attempts failed to gain support, while Johnson faced increasing pressure to secure a deal for the United Kingdom, following the enactment of the European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 2) Act 2019 (referred to as the "Benn Act") which prevented him from taking the country out of the EU without a deal. After failing to pass a revised deal before the first extension's deadline of 31 October 2019, Johnson was forced to call for a second extension on negotiations from the EU, and agreed upon holding a vote for a snap election through a proposal forwarded by the Liberal Democrats and Scottish National parties on 28 October. The act, designated as the "Early Parliamentary General Election Act 2019", secured a majority the following day for it to be held on 12 December; an amendment proposed by opposition parties for the election to be held on 9 December failed by 315 votes to 295 against. The final Commons vote on the bill passed by 438 votes to 20. The House of Lords followed suit on 30 October, with Royal Assent made the day after.

Voting eligibility

To vote in the general election, one must be:

• on the Electoral Register;
• aged 18 or over on polling day;
• either a Commonwealth citizen (within the meaning of section 37 of the British Nationality Act 1981) or a citizen of the Republic of Ireland (section 1(c) of the Representation of the People Act 1983);
• resident at an address in the United Kingdom, or a British citizen living abroad who has been registered to vote in the UK at any time in the last 15 years.
  • Irish citizens who were born in Northern Ireland and qualify as British citizens, whether or not they identify themselves as such, may also be overseas voters
• not legally excluded from voting (most notably a convicted person detained in prison or a mental hospital, or unlawfully at large if the person would otherwise have been detained, or a person found guilty of certain corrupt or illegal practices) or disqualified from voting (peers sitting in the House of Lords).

Individuals had to be registered to vote by midnight on 31 October. Anyone who qualified as an anonymous elector had until midnight on 6 December to register. A person who had two homes (such as a university student who has a term-time address and lives at home during holidays) could be able to register to vote at both addresses, provided that they were not in the same electoral area, but could only vote in one constituency at the general election.

Date of the election

Further information: Early Parliamentary General Election Act 2019

The deadline for candidate nominations was set to 14 November 2019, with political campaigning taking place for four weeks until polling day on 12 December. On the day of election, polling stations across the country were opened from 7am, and closed at 10pm. This date occurred despite the FTPA, which introduced fixed-term parliaments to the United Kingdom, with elections having been scheduled on the Thursday 5 May 2022.

The 2019 election was the first general election in the United Kingdom to be held in December since 1923.

Timetable

The key dates were:

Tuesday 29 October

Passage of the Early Parliamentary General Election Act 2019 through the House of Commons

Wednesday 30 October

Passage of the Early Parliamentary General Election Act 2019 through the House of Lords

Thursday 31 October

Early Parliamentary General Election Act 2019 receives Royal Assent and comes into force immediately. The Act sets 12 December as the date for the next parliamentary general election.

Wednesday 6 November

Dissolution of Parliament (the 57th) and official start of the campaign. Beginning of purdah. Royal Proclamation summoning a new Parliament and setting the date for its first meeting issued.

Thursday 7 November

Receipt of writ – legal documents declaring election issued

From Friday 8 November

Notice of election given in constituencies

Thursday 14 November

Nominations of candidates close

Saturday 16 November

Candidates lists are published for each constituency

Thursday 21 November

Deadline to register for a postal vote at 5pm (Northern Ireland)

Tuesday 26 November

Deadline to register for a postal vote at 5pm (Great Britain)

Deadline for registering to vote at 11:59pm

Wednesday 4 December

Deadline to register for a proxy vote at 5pm. (Exemptions apply for emergencies.)

Thursday 12 December

Polling Day – polls open 7 am to 10 pm

Friday 13 December

Results announced for all the 650 constituencies. End of purdah.

Tuesday 17 December

First meeting of the new (58th) Parliament of the United Kingdom, for the formal election of a Speaker of the Commons and the swearing-in of members, ahead of the State Opening of the new Parliament's first session.

Campaign

Campaign background

Further information: Brexit and Brexit negotiations in 2019

The Conservative Party and Labour Party have been the two biggest political parties, and have supplied every Prime Minister, since 1922. The Conservative Party have governed since the 2010 election, in coalition with the Liberal Democrats from 2010 to 2015. At the 2015 general election the Conservative Party committed to offering a referendum on whether the UK should leave the European Union and won a majority in that election. A referendum was held in June 2016, and the Leave campaign won by 51.9% to 48.1%. The UK initiated the withdrawal process in March 2017, and Prime Minister Theresa May triggered a snap general election in 2017, in order to demonstrate support for her planned negotiation of Brexit. The Conservative Party won a plurality of MPs, but not a majority; they formed a minority government, with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) as their confidence and supply partner. Neither May nor her successor Boris Johnson (winner of the 2019 Conservative Party leadership election) was able to secure parliamentary support either for a deal on the terms of the UK's exit from the EU, or for exiting the EU without an agreed deal. Johnson later succeeded in bringing his Withdrawal Agreement to a second reading in Parliament, following another extension until January 2020.

During the lifespan of the 2017 parliament, twenty MPs quit their parties, most due to disputes with their party leaderships; some formed new parties and alliances. In February 2019, eight Labour and three Conservative MPs resigned from their parties to sit together as The Independent Group. Having undergone a split and two name changes, at dissolution this group numbered five MPs who sat as the registered party The Independent Group for Change under the leadership of Anna Soubry. Two MPs sat in a group called The Independents (which at its peak had five members), one MP created the Birkenhead Social Justice Party, while a further 20 MPs who began as Labour or Conservative ended the Parliament as unaffiliated independents. Seven MPs, from both the Conservatives and Labour, joined the Liberal Democrats during the parliament, in combination with a by-election gain. The Lib Dems ultimately raised their number from 12 at the election to 20 at dissolution.

One reason for the defections from the Labour Party was the ongoing allegations of antisemitism and claims that Jeremy Corbyn and the party leadership had not done enough to tackle the problem. Labour entered the election campaign undergoing investigation by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. The Jewish Labour Movement declared it would not generally campaign for Labour. The Conservative Party has also been criticised for not doing enough about alleged Islamophobia in the party.

Also due to defections, the Conservatives ended the previous parliamentary period with fewer seats than they had started with because they had expelled a number of MPs for going against the party line on a Brexit related vote. Ten of the 21 MPs expelled were subsequently reinstated, while others continued as independents.

Policy positions

Brexit

The major parties have a wide variety of stances on Brexit. The Conservative Party support leaving under the terms of the withdrawal agreement as negotiated by Johnson (amending Theresa May's previous agreement), and this agreement forms a central part of the Conservative campaign. The Brexit Party are in favour of a "no-deal Brexit", with their leader Farage calling for Johnson to drop the deal.

The Labour Party position is that a Labour government would renegotiate the withdrawal agreement (towards a closer post-withdrawal association with the EU) and would then put this forward as an option in a referendum against remaining in the EU. The Labour Party's campaigning stance in that referendum would be decided at a special conference. In a Question Time special featuring four party leaders, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said he would stay neutral in the referendum campaign.

The Liberal Democrats, Scottish National Party (SNP), Plaid Cymru, The Independent Group for Change, and the Green Party of England and Wales are all opposed to Brexit, and propose that a further referendum be held with the option – which they would campaign for – to remain in the EU. The Liberal Democrats originally pledged that if they won a majority government (considered a highly unlikely outcome by observers), they would revoke the Article 50 notification immediately and cancel Brexit. Part-way through the campaign, the Liberal Democrats dropped the policy of revoking Article 50 after the party realised it was not going to win a majority in the election.

The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) is in favour of a withdrawal agreement in principle but it opposes the deals negotiated by both May and Johnson, believing that they create too great a divide between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. Sinn Féin, the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and Alliance all favour remaining in the EU. The UUP does not see a second referendum as a necessary route to achieving this goal.

Tax and spending commitments

In September 2019, the Conservative government performed a spending review, where they announced plans to increase public spending by £13.8bn/year, and reaffirmed plans to spend another £33.9bn/year on the NHS by 2023. Chancellor Sajid Javid claimed the government had turned the page on 10 years of austerity. During the election the parties produced manifestos that outlined spending in addition to those already planned.

The Conservative manifesto was described as having "little in the way of changes to tax" by the IFS. The decision to keep the rate of corporation tax at 19%, and not reduce it to 17% as planned is expected to raise £6bn/year. The plan to increase the national insurance threshold for employees and self-employed to £9,500 will cost £2bn/year. They also committed to not raise rates of income tax, National Insurance or VAT. There are increased spending commitments of £3bn current spending and £8bn investment spending. This would overall lead to the UK's debt as a percentage of GDP remaining stable (the IFS assess it would rise in the event of a no deal Brexit).

The Labour manifesto plans to raise an extra £78bn/year from taxes over the course of the parliament, with sources including:

• £24bn – raising the headline rate of corporation tax to 26%
• £6.3bn – tax multinationals' global profits according to UK share of global employment/assets/sales, not UK profits
• £4.0bn – abolish patent box & R&D tax credit for large companies
• £4.3bn – cutting unspecified corporation tax reliefs
• £9bn – financial transactions tax
• £14bn – dividends and capital gains
• £6bn – anti-avoidance
• £5bn – increases in income tax rates above £80,000/year
• £5bn – other

In addition Labour will get income from the Inclusive Ownership Fund, windfall tax on oil companies and some smaller tax changes. There are increased spending commitments of £98bn current spending and £55bn investment spending. This would overall lead to the UK's debt as a percentage of GDP rising, Labour's John McDonnell said borrowing would only be for investment and one offs (e.g. compensating WASPI women, not shown above), and not for day to day spending.

The Liberal Democrat manifesto plans to raise an extra £36bn/year from taxes over the course of the parliament, with sources including:

• £10bn – raising corporation tax to 20%
• £7bn – 1% point rise in all rates of income tax
• £5bn – abolish CGT allowance
• £5bn – air passenger duty on frequent flyers
• £6bn – anti-avoidance
• £3bn – other

There are increased commitments of £37bn current spending and £26bn investment spending, which would overall lead to the UK's debt as a percentage of GDP falling, partly due to improved economic conditions which would result from staying in the EU.

Other issues

The Conservative Party proposed increasing spending on the NHS, although not as much of an increase as Labour and Liberal Democrat proposals. They also proposed increased funding for childcare and on the environment. They proposed more funding for care services and to work with other parties on reforming how care is delivered. They wish to maintain the "triple lock" on pensions. They proposed investing in local infrastructure, including building a new rail line between Leeds and Manchester.

Labour proposed significantly increasing government spending to 45% of national output which would be high compared to most of UK history, but is comparable with other European countries. This would pay for an increased NHS budget; stopping state pension age rises; introducing a National Care Service providing free personal care; move to a net-zero carbon economy by the 2030s; nationalising key industries; scrapping universal credit; free bus travel for under-25s; building 100,000 council houses per year; and other proposals. Within this, the Labour Party proposes to take rail-operating companies, energy supply networks, Royal Mail, sewerage and England's private water companies back into public ownership. Labour proposed nationalising part of BT and providing free broadband to everyone. Labour is running for free education for six years. Over a decade, Labour plan to reduce the average full-time weekly working hours to 32, with resulting productivity increases facilitating no loss of pay.

The Liberal Democrats' main priority is opposing Brexit. Other policies include increased spending on the NHS; free childcare for two to four year olds; recruiting 20,000 more teachers; generating 80% of electricity from renewable sources by 2030; freezing train fares; and legalising cannabis.

The Brexit Party is also focused on Brexit. They oppose privatising the NHS. They seek to reduce immigration, cutting net migration to 50,000 per year; cutting VAT on domestic fuel; banning the exporting of waste; free broadband in deprived regions; scrapping the BBC licence fee; and abolishing inheritance tax, interest on student loans, and HS2. They also want to move to a US-style Supreme Court.

The policies of the SNP included a second referendum on Scottish independence next year as well as one on Brexit, removing Trident, and devolution across issues such as employment law, drug policy, and migration.

The Liberal Democrats, the Greens, the SNP and Labour all support a ban on fracking, whilst the Conservatives propose approving fracking on a case-by-case basis.

Party positions in the event of a hung Parliament

The Conservatives and Labour both insisted they were on course for outright majorities, but smaller parties were quizzed about what they would do in the event of a hung Parliament. The Liberal Democrats said they would not actively support Johnson or Corbyn becoming Prime Minister, but that they could, if an alternative could not be achieved, abstain on votes allowing a minority government to form if there was support for a second referendum on Brexit. The SNP ruled out either supporting the Conservatives or a coalition with Labour, but spoke about a looser form of support, such as a confidence and supply arrangement with the latter, if they supported a second referendum on Scottish independence.

The DUP previously supported the Conservative government, but withdrew that support given their opposition to Johnson's proposed Brexit deal. They said they would never support Corbyn as Prime Minister, but could work with Labour if led by someone else. The UUP has also said they would never support Corbyn as Prime Minister, with their leader Steve Aiken saying he "can't really see" any situation in which they would support a Conservative government either. Their focus would be on remaining in the EU.

Tactical voting

Under the first-past-the-post electoral system, voter turn-out (especially in marginal seats) has a crucial impact on the final election outcome, so major political parties disproportionately focus on opinion poll trends and these constituencies. In the early stages of the campaign, there was considerable discussion of tactical voting (generally in the context of support or opposition to Brexit) and whether parties would stand in all seats or not. There were various electoral pacts and unilateral decisions. The Brexit Party chose not to stand against sitting Conservative candidates, but stood in most other constituencies. The Brexit Party alleged that pressure was put on their candidates by the Conservatives to withdraw, including the offer of peerages, which would be illegal. This was denied by the Conservative Party. Under the banner of Unite to Remain, the Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and the Green Party of England and Wales agreed an electoral pact in some seats, but some commentators criticised the Liberal Democrats for not standing down in some Labour seats.

A number of tactical voting websites were set up in an attempt to help voters choose the candidate in their constituency who would be best placed to beat the Conservative one. The websites did not always give the same advice, which Michael Savage, political editor of The Guardian, said had the potential to confuse voters. One of the websites—GetVoting, set up by Best for Britain—was accused of giving bogus advice in Labour/Conservative marginal seats. The website, which had links to the Liberal Democrat party, was criticised for advising pro-remain voters to back the Liberal Democrats when doing so risked pulling voters away from Labour candidates and enabling the Conservative candidate to gain most votes. Further into the election period, tactical voting websites changed their recommendations because of new data.

In the final weekend before voting, the centre-left Guardian newspaper cited a poll suggesting that the Conservative party held a 15% lead over Labour, while on the same day, the Conservative-backing Daily Telegraph emphasised a poll indicating only an 8% lead. Senior opposition politicians from Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the SNP launched a late-stage appeal to anti-Conservative voters to consider switching allegiance in the general election, amid signs that tactical voting in a relatively small number of marginal seats could deprive Johnson of a majority in parliament.

Canvassing and leafleting

Predictions of an overall Conservative majority were based on their targeting of primarily Labour-held, Brexit-backing seats in the Midlands and the north of England. At the start of the election period, Labour-supporting organisation Momentum held what was described as "the largest mobilising call in UK history", involving more than 2,000 canvassers. The organisation challenged Labour supporters to devote a week or more to campaigning full-time (as of 4 December, 1,400 people had signed up). Momentum also developed an app called My Campaign Map that updated members where they could be more effective, particularly in canvassing in marginal constituencies. Over one weekend during the campaign period, 700 Labour supporters campaigned in Iain Duncan Smith's constituency, Chingford and Woodford Green, which is regarded as a marginal, with a majority of 2,438 votes at the last election.

The Liberal Democrats likewise were considered possible contenders for a number of Conservative-held southern English constituencies; with a large swing that could even topple Dominic Raab in Esher and Walton. At the beginning of the 2019 campaign, they had been accused of attempting to mislead voters by using selective polling data and use of a quotation attributed to The Guardian newspaper rather than to their leader, Jo Swinson. They were also accused of making campaign leaflets look like newspapers, although this practice has been used by all major British political parties for many years, including by Labour and the Conservatives during this election.

The Liberal Democrats won a court case stopping the SNP from distributing a "potentially defamatory" leaflet in Swinson's constituency over false claims about funding she had received.

Online campaigning

The use of social media advertising is seen as particularly useful to political parties as they can target people by gender, age, and location. Labour is reported to have the most interactions, with The Times describing Labour's "aggressive, anti-establishment messages" as "beating clever Tory memes". In the first week of November, Labour is reported to have four of the five most "liked" tweets by political parties, many of the top interactions of Facebook posts, as well as being "dominant" on Instagram, where younger voters are particularly active. Bloomberg reported that between 6–21 November the views on Twitter/Facebook were 18.7m/31.0m for Labour, 10m/15.5m for the Conservatives, 2.9m/2.0m for the Brexit Party, and 0.4m/1.4m for the Liberal Democrats.

Prior to the campaign, the Conservatives contracted New Zealand marketing agency Topham Guerin, which has been credited with helping Australia's Liberal–National Coalition unexpectedly win the 2019 Australian federal election. Their social media approach is described as purposefully posting badly-designed social media material, which becomes viral and so is seen by a wider audience. Some of the Conservative social media activity has created headlines challenging whether it is deceptive. This included editing a clip of Keir Starmer to appear he was unable to answer a question about Labour's Brexit policy. In response to criticism over the doctored Starmer footage, Conservative Party chairman James Cleverly said the clip of Starmer was satire and "obviously edited".

During the 19 November debate between Johnson and Corbyn hosted by ITV, the press office of the Conservative Campaign Headquarters (CCHQ) re-branded their Twitter account (@CCHQPress) as 'factcheckUK' (with "from CCHQ" in small text appearing underneath the logo in the account's banner image), which critics suggest could be mistaken for that of an independent fact-checking body, and published posts supporting the Conservative's position. In defence, Conservative chairman Cleverly stated that "The Twitter handle of the CCHQ press office remained CCHQPress, so it's clear the nature of the site", and as "calling out when the Labour Party put what they know to be complete fabrications in the public domain". In response to the re-branding on Twitter, the Electoral Commission, which does not have a role in regulating election campaign content, called on all campaigners to act "responsibly", fact-checking body Full Fact criticised this behaviour as "inappropriate and misleading", and Twitter stated that it would take "decisive corrective action" if there were "further attempts to mislead people".

First Draft News released an analysis of Facebook ads posted by political parties between December 1 and December 4. The analysis reports 88% of the 6,749 posts the Conservatives made had been "challenged" by fact checker Full Fact. 5,000 of these ads related to a "40 new hospitals" claim where Full Fact concluded only 6 had been costed, with the others only currently receiving money for planning (with building uncosted and due to occur after 2025). 4,000 featured inaccurate claims about the cost of Labour's spending plans to the tax payer. 500 related to a "50,000 more nurses" posts which is composed of 31,500 extra new nurses, and convincing 18,500 more to remain. 16.5% of Liberal Democrats posts were highlighted, which related to claims they are the only party to beat Labour, the Conservatives or the SNP ‘in seats like yours’. None of the posts made by Labour in the period were challenged, although posts made on December 10 claiming a "Labour government would save households thousands in bills" and the Conservative Party had “cut £8bn from social care” since 2010, were flagged as misleading. According to the BBC, Labour supporters had been more likely to share unpaid-for electioneering posts, some of which included misleading claims.

Television debates

← 2017 debates	2019

ITV hosted a head-to-head election debate between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn on 19 November, hosted by Julie Etchingham. The broadcaster is also planning another debate in which the Liberal Democrats, the SNP, the Brexit Party, the Greens, and Plaid Cymru (in addition to Labour and the Conservatives) would be able to participate. Separate debates in Northern Ireland are also planned. STV are planning to hold a debate in Scotland. ITV Cymru Wales aired a debate featuring representatives from the Conservatives, Labour, the Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and the Brexit Party on 17 November, hosted by Adrian Masters. Johnson cancelled his ITV interview with Etchingham, scheduled for 6 December, whilst the other major party leaders agreed to be interviewed.

On the BBC, broadcaster Andrew Neil was due to separately interview party leaders in The Andrew Neil Interviews, and BBC Northern Ireland journalist Mark Carruthers to separately interview the five main Northern Irish political leaders. The leaders of the SNP, Labour, Plaid Cymru, the Liberal Democrats and the Brexit Party were all interviewed by Neil and the leader of the Conservative Party was not, leading Neil to release a challenge to Johnson to be interviewed. The Conservatives dismissed Neil's challenge. The BBC is also holding a variety of election debates, beginning with a special Question Time episode featuring Nigel Farage on 18 November, followed by another one featuring Johnson, Corbyn, Jo Swinson and Nicola Sturgeon on 22 November, and finally a head-to-head debate between Johnson and Corbyn on 6 December. BBC Scotland, BBC Wales and BBC Northern Ireland also hosted a variety of regional debates.

Channel 4 cancelled a debate scheduled for 24 November after Johnson would not agree to the head-to-head with Corbyn. A few days later, the network hosted a leaders debate focused on the climate. Johnson and Farage did not attend and were replaced on stage by ice sculptures with their party names written on them. The Conservatives alleged this was part of a pattern of bias at the channel, complained to Ofcom that Channel 4 had breached due impartiality rules, and suggested they may review the channel's broadcasting licence. Ofcom rejected the Conservatives' complaint. The Conservatives and the Brexit Party did not send a representative to Channel 4's "Everything but Brexit" on December 8.

Sky News was due to hold a three-way election debate on 28 November, inviting Johnson, Corbyn and Swinson. Swinson confirmed she would attend the debate, but it was later cancelled after agreements could not be made with Corbyn or Johnson.

2019 United Kingdom general election debates in Great Britain
Date	Organisers	Venue	Region	Viewing figures (millions)	P  Present   S  Standing-in   NI  Not invited   A  Absent   I  Invited   N  No debate
					Con	Lab	SNP	LD	Plaid	Green	Brexit
					style="width:6.5em; background:Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color;" |	style="width:6.5em; background:Template:Labour Party (UK)/meta/color;" |	style="width:6.5em; background:Template:Scottish National Party/meta/color;" |	style="width:6.5em; background:Template:Liberal Democrats (UK)/meta/color;" |	style="width:6.5em; background:Template:Plaid Cymru/meta/color;" |	style="width:6.5em; background:Template:Green Party of England and Wales/meta/color;" |	style="width:6.5em; background:Template:Brexit Party/meta/color;" |
17 November	ITV Cymru Wales	ITV Wales Studios, Cardiff	Wales	0.28	S Davies	S Thomas-Symonds	NI	P Dodds	S Saville Roberts	NI	S Gill
19 November	ITV	Dock10, Salford	UK	7.34	P Johnson	P Corbyn	NI	NI	NI	NI	NI
22 November	BBC (Question Time)	Octagon Centre, Sheffield	UK	4.62	P Johnson	P Corbyn	P Sturgeon	P Swinson	NI	NI	NI
24 November (cancelled)	Channel 4	N/A	UK	N/A	N Johnson	N Corbyn	NI	NI	NI	NI	NI
26 November	BBC Wales (Wales Live)	Pembrokeshire County Showground, Haverfordwest	Wales	TBA	S Davies	S Griffith	NI	P Dodds	S Saville Roberts	NI	S Wells
28 November (cancelled)	Sky News	N/A	UK	N/A	N Johnson	N Corbyn	NI	N Swinson	NI	NI	NI
28 November	Channel 4 (climate and nature)	ITN Headquarters, London	UK	TBA	A Johnson	P Corbyn	P Sturgeon	P Swinson	P Price	P Berry	A Farage
29 November	BBC	Senedd, Cardiff	UK	TBA	S Sunak	S Long-Bailey	P Sturgeon	P Swinson	P Price	S Lucas	S Tice
1 December	ITV	Dock10, Salford	UK	TBA	S Sunak	S Burgon	P Sturgeon	P Swinson	P Price	P Berry	P Farage
3 December	BBC Wales	Wrexham Glyndŵr University, Wrexham	Wales	TBA	S Jones	S Hanson	NI	S John	S ap Iorwerth	NI	P Gill
3 December	STV	STV Pacific Quay, Glasgow	Scotland	TBA	P Carlaw	P Leonard	P Sturgeon	P Rennie	NI	NI	NI
6 December	BBC	Maidstone Studios, Maidstone	UK	4.42	P Johnson	P Corbyn	NI	NI	NI	NI	NI
8 December	Channel 4 (everything but Brexit)	Leeds (TBC)	UK	TBA	A	S Rayner	S Whitford	P Swinson	P Price	P Bartley	A
9 December	BBC (Question Time Under 30)	York	UK	TBA	S Jenrick	S Rayner	S Yousaf	P Swinson	P Price	P Bartley	P Farage
10 December	BBC Scotland	BBC Pacific Quay, Glasgow	Scotland	TBA	P Carlaw	P Leonard	P Sturgeon	P Rennie	NI	NI	NI

2019 United Kingdom general election debates in Northern Ireland
Date	Organisers	Venue	Viewing figures (millions)	P  Present   S  Standing-in   NI  Not invited   A  Absent   I  Invited   N  No debate
				DUP	SF	SDLP	UUP	Alli.
				style="width:6.5em; background:Template:Democratic Unionist Party/meta/color;" |	style="width:6.5em; background:Template:Sinn Féin/meta/color;" |	style="width:6.5em; background:Template:Social Democratic and Labour Party/meta/color;" |	style="width:6.5em; background:Template:Ulster Unionist Party/meta/color;" |	style="width:6.5em; background:Template:Alliance Party of Northern Ireland/meta/color;" |
8 December	UTV	Queen's Film Theatre, Belfast	TBA	S Little-Pengelly	P O'Neill	P Eastwood	P Aiken	P Long
10 December	BBC Northern Ireland	Broadcasting House, Belfast	TBA	S Donaldson	P O'Neill	P Eastwood	P Aiken	P Long

Campaign events

Before candidate nominations closed, several planned candidates for Labour and for the Conservatives withdrew, principally because of past social media activity. At least three Labour candidates and one Conservative candidate stood down, with two of the Labour candidates doing so following allegedly anti-Semitic remarks. Two other Conservative candidates were suspended from the Conservative party over antisemitic social media posts, but retained their candidacy for the party. The Liberal Democrats removed one of its candidates over antisemitic social media posts, and defended two others.

Several former Labour MPs critical of Corbyn endorsed the Conservatives. Meanwhile, several former Conservative MPs endorsed the Liberal Democrats and/or independent candidates, including the former deputy Prime Minister, Michael Heseltine. A week before election day, former Conservative prime minister John Major warned the public against enabling a majority Conservative government, to avoid what he saw as the damage a Johnson-led government could do to the country through Brexit. Major encouraged voters to vote tactically and to back former Conservative candidates instead of those put forward by the Conservative party.

Floods hit parts of England from 7 – 18 November. Johnson was criticised for what some saw as his late response to the flooding after he said they were not a national emergency.

The Conservatives banned Daily Mirror reporters from Johnson's campaign bus.

On 27 November, Labour announced it had obtained leaked government documents; they claimed these showed that, despite claims otherwise, the Conservatives were in trade negotiations with the US over the NHS. The Conservatives said Labour were peddling "conspiracy theories".

A terrorist stabbing attack happened in London on 29 November, because of which the political parties suspended campaigning in London for a period.

The 2019 NATO summit was held in Watford, United Kingdom, on 3–4 December 2019. It was attended by 29 heads of state and heads of government, including Donald Trump.

On 6 December, Labour announced it had hold of leaked government documents which they said showed that Johnson had misled the public about the Conservatives' Brexit deal with the EU, specifically regarding custom checks between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which Johnson had said would not exist.

Contesting political parties and candidates

Main article: Candidates in the 2019 United Kingdom general election

Most candidates are representatives of a political party, which must be registered with the Electoral Commission's Register of Political Parties. Candidates who do not belong to a registered party can use an "independent" label, or no label at all. Across the United Kingdom, there are 3,415 candidates representing 68 political parties, including 206 independent candidates.

Great Britain

Major parties (parties with multiple MPs at dissolution or those that currently have multiple MEPs) that contested this election in Great Britain are shown in the table below with their results at the 2017 general election, ordered by the number of seats they won.

Party		Party leader(s)	Leader since	Leader's seat	Last election		Seats at dissolution	Contesting seats
					% of votes	Seats
width="1" bgcolor="Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Conservative Party	Boris Johnson	July 2019	Uxbridge & South Ruislip	42.4%	317	298	635 seats in the United Kingdom
bgcolor="Template:Labour Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Labour Party	Jeremy Corbyn	September 2015	Islington North	40.0%	262	244	631 seats in Great Britain
bgcolor="Template:Scottish National Party/meta/color" |	Scottish National Party	Nicola Sturgeon	November 2014	None	3.0%	35	35	59 seats in Scotland
bgcolor="Template:Liberal Democrats (UK)/meta/color" |	Liberal Democrats	Jo Swinson	July 2019	East Dunbartonshire	7.4%	12	21	611 seats in Great Britain
bgcolor="Template:Change UK/meta/color"|	Change UK	Anna Soubry	June 2019	Broxtowe	New party		5	3 seats in England
bgcolor="Template:Plaid Cymru/meta/color"|	Plaid Cymru	Adam Price	September 2018	None	0.5%	4	4	36 seats in Wales
bgcolor="Template:Green Party of England and Wales/meta/color" rowspan="2" |	Green Party of England and Wales	Jonathan Bartley	September 2016	None	1.6%	1	1	474 seats in England and Wales
Siân Berry		September 2018
bgcolor="Template:Brexit Party/meta/color" |	Brexit Party	Nigel Farage	March 2019	None	New party		0	276 seats in Great Britain

As outlined above, the Conservative Party has governed in coalition or on their own since 2010, and has been led by Boris Johnson since July 2019. Jeremy Corbyn has been Labour Party leader since 2015 and was the first Labour leader since Tony Blair to contest consecutive general elections, as well as the first since Neil Kinnock to contest a second general election after lost the first. One other party, the Liberal Democrats, contested seats across Great Britain. They were led by Tim Farron at the 2017 election, before he was replaced by Vince Cable. Cable was succeeded by Jo Swinson in July 2019. The Brexit Party contested somewhat under half the seats. They were founded in early 2019 by Nigel Farage, former leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), and won the most votes at the May 2019 European Parliament elections. The Brexit Party have largely replaced UKIP in British politics, with UKIP (which gained 12.6% of the vote but just one MP at the 2015 election) losing almost all its support. UKIP stood in 42 seats in Great Britain and two seats in Northern Ireland.

The Green Party of England and Wales have been led by Jonathan Bartley and Siân Berry since 2018, with their counterparts the Scottish Green Party standing in Scottish seats. The two parties stood in a total of 495 seats. The third-largest party in seats won at the 2017 election was the Scottish National Party, led by Nicola Sturgeon since 2014, who stand only in Scotland but hold the majority (35 of 59 before this election) of seats there. Similarly, Plaid Cymru, led by Adam Price, stand only in Wales where they hold 4 of 40 seats.

Northern Ireland

Main article: 2019 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland

While a number of UK parties organise in Northern Ireland (including the Labour Party, which does not field candidates) and others field candidates for election (most notably the Conservatives), the main Northern Ireland parties are different from those in the rest of the UK.

Some parties in Northern Ireland operate on an all-Ireland basis, including Sinn Féin and Aontú, who are abstensionist parties and do not take up any Commons seats to which they are elected. The only independent elected to Parliament in 2017, Sylvia Hermon, represented North Down but did not stand in 2019.

In the 2019 election, there were a total of 102 candidates in Northern Ireland.

Party		Leader	Leader since	Leader's seat	Last election		Seats at dissolution	Contesting seats (out of 18 in total)
					% (in NI)	Seats
width="1" bgcolor="Template:Democratic Unionist Party/meta/color" |	Democratic Unionist Party	Arlene Foster	December 2015	None	36.0%	10	10	17 seats
bgcolor="Template:Sinn Féin/meta/color"|	Sinn Féin	Mary Lou McDonald	February 2018	None	29.4%	7	7	15 seats
bgcolor="Template:Social Democratic and Labour Party/meta/color" |	Social Democratic & Labour Party	Colum Eastwood	November 2015	None	11.7%	0	0	15 seats
bgcolor="Template:Ulster Unionist Party/meta/color" |	Ulster Unionist Party	Steve Aiken	November 2019	None	10.3%	0	0	16 seats
bgcolor="Template:Alliance Party of Northern Ireland/meta/color" |	Alliance Party	Naomi Long	October 2016	None	7.9%	0	0	18 seats

Electoral pacts and unilateral decisions

Further information: Unite to Remain

Constituencies where the Unite to Remain pact was active. Coloured by which party stood a candidate.

In England and Wales, the Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru, and the Green Party of England and Wales – parties sharing an anti-Brexit position – arranged a "Unite to Remain" pact. Labour declined to be involved. This agreement meant that in 60 constituencies only one of these parties, the one considered to have the best chance of winning, stood. This pact aimed to maximise the total number of anti-Brexit MPs returned under the first-past-the-post system by avoiding the spoiler effect.

In addition, the Liberal Democrats did not run against Dominic Grieve (independent, formerly Conservative), Gavin Shuker (independent, formerly Labour), and Anna Soubry (The Independent Group for Change, formerly Conservative).

The Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage had suggested the Brexit and Conservative parties could form an electoral pact to maximise the seats taken by Brexit-supporting MPs, but this was rejected by Johnson. On 11 November, Farage announced that his party would not stand in any of the 317 seats won by the Conservatives at the last election. This was welcomed by the Conservative Party chairman James Cleverly, and he insisted there had been no contact between them and the Brexit Party over the plan. Newsnight reported that conversations between members of the Brexit Party and the Conservative, pro-Brexit research support group European Research Group (ERG) led to this decision. The Brexit Party reportedly requested that Johnson publicly state he would not extend the Brexit transition period beyond the planned end of December 2020 date and that he wished for a Canada-style free trade agreement with the EU. Johnson did make a statement covering these two issues, something which Farage referenced as key when announcing he was standing down some candidates. Both the Brexit Party and the Conservatives denied any deal was done between the two.

Map showing electoral pacts in Northern Ireland

The Green Party also did not stand in two Conservative-held seats, Chingford and Woodford Green and Calder Valley, in favour of Labour. The Green Party had also unsuccessfully attempted to form a progressive alliance with the Labour Party prior to Unite to Remain. The Women's Equality Party stood aside in three seats in favour of the Liberal Democrats, after the LibDems adopted some of their policies.

The DUP did not contest Fermanagh and South Tyrone and the UUP did not contest Belfast North so as not to split the unionist vote. Other parties stood down in selected seats so as not to split the anti-Brexit vote. The nationalist and anti-Brexit parties the SDLP and Sinn Féin agreed a pact whereby the SDLP did not stand in Belfast North (in favour of Sinn Féin), while Sinn Féin did not stand in Belfast South (in favour of SDLP); neither party stood in Belfast East or North Down and advised their supporters to vote Alliance in those two constituencies. The Green Party in Northern Ireland did not stand in any of the four Belfast constituencies, backing the SDLP in Belfast South, Sinn Féin in Belfast North and West, and Alliance in Belfast East and North Down; the party only stood in the safe seats of East Antrim, Strangford and West Tyrone. Alliance did not stand down in any seats, describing the plans as "sectarian".

Marginal seats

Main article: List of target seats in the 2019 United Kingdom general election

At the 2017 election, more than 1 in 8 seats were won by a margin of 5% or less of votes, while almost 1 in 4 were won by 10% or less. These seats were seen as crucial in deciding the election.

2017–19 MPs standing under a different political affiliation

The following MPs elected in 2017 contested the 2019 election for a different party or as an independent candidate, with a number of these moving to different constituencies. All of these candidates failed to be re-elected.

Outgoing MP	2017 party		2017 constituency	2019 party		2019 constituency
Luciana Berger style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #E4003B;" data-sort-value="Labour Party (UK)" |	Labour	Liverpool Wavertree style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #FAA61A;" data-sort-value="Liberal Democrats (UK)" |	Liberal Democrats	Finchley and Golders Green
Frank Field style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #E4003B;" data-sort-value="Labour Party (UK)" |	Labour	Birkenhead style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #b2393e;" data-sort-value="Birkenhead Social Justice Party" |	Birkenhead Social Justice	Birkenhead
Mike Gapes style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #E4003B;" data-sort-value="Labour Party (UK)" |	Labour	Ilford South style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #222221;" data-sort-value="Change UK" |	Change UK	Ilford South
David Gauke style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #0087DC;" data-sort-value="Conservative Party (UK)" |	Conservative	South West Hertfordshire style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #DCDCDC;" data-sort-value="Independent politician" |	Independent	South West Hertfordshire
Roger Godsiff style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #E4003B;" data-sort-value="Labour Party (UK)" |	Labour	Birmingham Hall Green style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #DCDCDC;" data-sort-value="Independent politician" |	Independent	Birmingham Hall Green
Dominic Grieve style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #0087DC;" data-sort-value="Conservative Party (UK)" |	Conservative	Beaconsfield style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #DCDCDC;" data-sort-value="Independent politician" |	Independent	Beaconsfield
Sam Gyimah style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #0087DC;" data-sort-value="Conservative Party (UK)" |	Conservative	East Surrey style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #FAA61A;" data-sort-value="Liberal Democrats (UK)" |	Liberal Democrats	Kensington
Phillip Lee style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #0087DC;" data-sort-value="Conservative Party (UK)" |	Conservative	Bracknell style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #FAA61A;" data-sort-value="Liberal Democrats (UK)" |	Liberal Democrats	Wokingham
Chris Leslie style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #E4003B;" data-sort-value="Labour Party (UK)" |	Labour	Nottingham East style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #222221;" data-sort-value="Change UK" |	Change UK	Nottingham East
Ivan Lewis (withdrawn) style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #E4003B;" data-sort-value="Labour Party (UK)" |	Labour	Bury South style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #DCDCDC;" data-sort-value="Independent politician" |	Independent	Bury South
Anne Milton style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #0087DC;" data-sort-value="Conservative Party (UK)" |	Conservative	Guildford style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #DCDCDC;" data-sort-value="Independent politician" |	Independent	Guildford
Antoinette Sandbach style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #0087DC;" data-sort-value="Conservative Party (UK)" |	Conservative	Eddisbury style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #FAA61A;" data-sort-value="Liberal Democrats (UK)" |	Liberal Democrats	Eddisbury
Anna Soubry style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #0087DC;" data-sort-value="Conservative Party (UK)" |	Conservative	Broxtowe style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #222221;" data-sort-value="Change UK" |	Change UK	Broxtowe
Gavin Shuker style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #E4003B;" data-sort-value="Labour Party (UK)" |	Labour	Luton South style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #DCDCDC;" data-sort-value="Independent politician" |	Independent	Luton South
Angela Smith style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #E4003B;" data-sort-value="Labour Party (UK)" |	Labour	Penistone and Stocksbridge style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #FAA61A;" data-sort-value="Liberal Democrats (UK)" |	Liberal Democrats	Altrincham and Sale West
Chris Williamson style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #E4003B;" data-sort-value="Labour Party (UK)" |	Labour	Derby North style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #DCDCDC;" data-sort-value="Independent politician" |	Independent	Derby North
Sarah Wollaston style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #0087DC;" data-sort-value="Conservative Party (UK)" |	Conservative	Totnes style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #FAA61A;" data-sort-value="Liberal Democrats (UK)" |	Liberal Democrats	Totnes
Chuka Umunna style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #E4003B;" data-sort-value="Labour Party (UK)" |	Labour	Streatham style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #FAA61A;" data-sort-value="Liberal Democrats (UK)" |	Liberal Democrats	Cities of London and Westminster

Withdrawn or disowned candidates

The following candidates withdrew from campaigning or had support from their party withdrawn after the close of nominations, and so they remained on the ballot paper in their constituency.

Candidate	Party		Constituency	Reason for withdrawal	Date
Safia Ali style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #E4003B;" data-sort-value="Labour Party (UK)" |	Labour	Falkirk	Prior antisemitic posts on Facebook	28 November
Amjad Bashir style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #0087DC;" data-sort-value="Conservative Party (UK)" |	Conservative	Leeds North East	Comments made in 2014 widely perceived as antisemitic	20 November
Sophie Cook style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #DCDCDC;" data-sort-value="Independent politician" |	Independent	East Worthing and Shoreham	Reported experience of abuse and harassment	19 November
Victor Farrell style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #12B6CF;" data-sort-value="Brexit Party" |	Brexit Party	Glenrothes	Homophobic comments in 2017	18 November
Neale Hanvey style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #FDF38E;" data-sort-value="Scottish National Party" |	SNP	Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath	Allegations of antisemitism in a 2016 Facebook post	28 November
Ryan Houghton style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #0087DC;" data-sort-value="Conservative Party (UK)" |	Conservative	Aberdeen North	Antisemitic, Islamophobic and homophobic tweets in 2012	19 November
Ivan Lewis style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #DCDCDC;" data-sort-value="Independent politician" |	Independent	Bury South	Urged voters to vote Conservative	4 December
Ben Mathis style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #FAA61A;" data-sort-value="Liberal Democrats (UK)" |	Liberal Democrats	Hackney North and Stoke Newington	Offensive tweets up to 2018	24 November
Waheed Rafiq style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #FAA61A;" data-sort-value="Liberal Democrats (UK)" |	Liberal Democrats	Birmingham, Hodge Hill	Antisemitic comments up to 2014	20 November
Flora Scarabello style="width: 2px; color:inherit; background-color: #0087DC;" data-sort-value="Conservative Party (UK)" |	Conservative	Glasgow Central	Anti-Muslim comments	27 November

Religious groups' opinions on the parties

Religious leaders and organisations made statements about the general election, with some people within the religious groups being keen to express that no one person or organisation represents the views of all the members of the faith. Leaders of the Church of England stated people had a "democratic duty to vote", that they should "leave their echo chambers", and "issues need to be debated respectfully, and without resorting to personal abuse".

Antisemitism in the Labour Party has been persistently covered in the media in the lead up to the election. In his leader's interview with Jeremy Corbyn, Andrew Neil dedicated the first third of the 30-minute programme entirely to discussion of Labour's relationship with the Jewish community. This was partly prompted by Ephraim Mirvis, the UK's chief rabbi, who represents Orthodox Judaism, accusing Corbyn of allowing a "poison sanctioned from the top" to take root in Labour, and saying that British Jews were gripped by anxiety about the prospect of a Corbyn-led government. The largest Jewish Labour group, the Jewish Labour Movement, have said they will not be actively campaigning locally for Labour unless there were exceptional circumstances. Jewish Voice for Labour, a pro-Corbyn group formed in 2017, released a statement accusing Rabbi Mirvis of making unfounded allegations against Corbyn, saying that he personally supports the Conservative Party.

The Muslim Council of Britain spokesman stated Islamophobia "is particularly acute in the Conservative Party" and they treat it "with denial, dismissal and deceit". In addition they released as 72 page document, outlining what they assess are the key issues from a British Muslim perspective. All 26 constituencies with a Muslim population above 20% voted for a Labour candidate in 2017. The MCB specifically criticises those who "seek to stigmatise and undermine Muslims"; for example, by inferring that Pakistanis ("often used as a proxy for Muslims") "vote en bloc as directed by Imams".

The Hindu Council UK has been strongly critical of Labour condemnation of the Indian government's actions in the disputed territory of Kashmir. They go as far as to say Labour are "increasing[ly] anti-Hindu". The Times of India reported that supporters of Narendra Modi's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were actively campaigning for the Tories in 48 marginal seats, and the Today programme reported that it had seen WhatsApp messages sent to Hindus across the country urging them to vote Conservative. Some British Indians spoke out against what they saw as the BJP's meddling in the UK election. The perceived "parachuting" of a Labour candidate into Leicester East, a constituency with one of the highest Indian populations in the UK, caused anger to be felt amongst the local British Indian community, as no candidates of Indian descent were interviewed. The party selected only one candidate of Indian descent to contest one of the party's 39 safest seats.

Endorsements

Main article: Endorsements in the 2019 United Kingdom general election

Newspapers, organisations and individuals have endorsed parties or individual candidates for the election.

Media coverage

Party representation

According to Loughborough University's Centre for Research in Communication and Culture (CRCC), media coverage of the first week of the campaign was dominated by the Conservatives and Labour, with the leaders of both parties being the most represented campaigners (Johnson with 20.8%; Corbyn with 18.8%). Due to this, the election coverage has been characterised as increasingly 'presidential' as smaller parties have been marginalised. In television coverage, Boris Johnson had a particularly high profile (30.4% against Corbyn's 22.6%). Labour (32%) and the Conservative Party (33%) received about a third of TV coverage each. In newspapers, Labour received two-fifths (40%) of the coverage and the Conservatives 35%. Spokespeople from both parties were quoted near equally, with Conservative sources being the most prominent in both press and TV coverage in terms of frequency of appearance. Sajid Javid and John McDonnell featured prominently during the first week because the economy was a top story for the media. McDonnell had more coverage than Javid on both TV and in print. A large proportion of the newspaper coverage of Labour was negative. Researches from the CRCC commented that this indicated the press was partisan and were "pulling out all the stops against Labour". In the Loughborough analysis, the Conservatives had a positive press coverage score of +29.7, making them the only party to receive a positive overall presentation in the press. Labour, meanwhile, had a negative score of -70, followed by the Brexit Party on -19.7 and the Liberal Democrats on -10.

The Liberal Democrats were the party with the most TV coverage in the first week after Labour and the Conservatives with an eighth of all reporting (13%). In newspapers they received less coverage than the Brexit Party, whose leader Nigel Farage received nearly as much coverage (12.3%) as Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn (17.4% each). Most of this coverage regarded the Brexit Party's electoral pact with the Conservatives. The Brexit Party (7%) and the SNP (5%) were fourth and fifth in terms of TV coverage, respectively.

Dominant issues

Johnson's primary aim in calling a snap election was to secure a majority in order to complete the process of the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union by the new deadline of 31 January 2020. The Conservatives required an increase of at least 9 seats compared to their 2017 result to achieve this. While Brexit heavily dominated the campaign, other issues included social spending, Labour's plan for the re-nationalisation of British industries and the SNP's call for a second referendum on Scottish Independence.

Gender balance

Of the 20 most prominent spokespeople in media coverage of the first week of the election period, five were women, with SNP leader and Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, in seventh place, the most featured. Women (including, e.g., citizens, experts, pollsters, businesspeople, trade union representatives, etc.) featured in 23.9% of coverage and men in 76.1%. Men spoke three times as much as women in TV coverage, and five times as much in newspaper coverage.

Expert manifesto analysis

Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS)

On 28 November the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS), an influential research body, released their in-depth analysis of the manifestos of the three main national political parties. The analysis both provides a summary of the financial promises made by each party, and an inspection of the accuracy of claims around government income and expenditure.

Their analysis of the Conservative manifesto concluded there was "essentially nothing new in the manifesto", that there was "little in the way of changes to tax, spending, welfare or anything else", and that they had already promised increased spending for health and education whilst in government. The Labour manifesto was described as introducing "enormous economic and social change", and increasing the role of the state to be bigger than anything in the last 40 years. They highlight a raft of changes in including free childcare, university, personal care and prescriptions, as well nationalisations, labour market regulations, increases in the minimum wage, and enforcing "effective ownership of 10% of large companies from current owners to a combination of employees and government". Labour's vision, the IFS said, "is of a state not so dissimilar to those seen in many other successful Western European economies" and presumed that the manifesto should be seen as "a long-term prospectus for change rather than a realistic deliverable plan for a five-year parliament". They said the Liberal Democrat manifesto is not as radical as the Labour manifesto and a "decisive move away from the policies of the past decade". The IFS described the figures stated in neither the Conservative or Labour manifesto as a "properly credible prospectus".

The Conservative manifesto was criticised for a commitment not to raise rates of income tax, NICs or VAT as this put a significant constraint on reactions to events that might affect government finances. One such event could be the "die in a ditch" promise to terminate the Brexit transition period by the end of 2020, which risked harming the economy.. They also state that it is "highly likely" spending would be higher than in their manifesto, partly due to a number of uncosted commitments. Outside of commitments to the NHS, the proposals would leave public service spending 14% lower in 2023–2024 than it was in 2010–2011, which the IFS described as "no more austerity perhaps, but an awful lot of it baked in".

The IFS stated they had "serious doubt" that tax rises proposed would raise the amount Labour suggested, and said that they would need to introduce more broad based tax increases. They assess that the public sector does not have the capacity to increase investment spending as Labour would want. The IFS assesses the claim that tax rises will only hit the top 5% of earners, as "certainly progressive", but "clearly not true", with those under that threshold impacted by changes to the marriage allowance, taxes on dividends or capital gains, and lower wages/higher prices that might be passed on from corporation tax changes. Some of Labour's proposals are described as "huge and complex undertakings", where significant care is required in implementation. The IFS is particularly critical of the policy to compensate the so-called "WASPI women", announced after the manifesto, which is a £58bn promise to women who are "relatively well off on average" and will result in public finances going off target. They said that Labour's manifesto would not increase UK public spending as a share of national income above Germany. They found that Labour's plan to spend and invest would boost economic growth, but the impact of tax rises, government regulation, nationalisations and the inclusive ownership fund could reduce growth, meaning the overall impact of Labour's plan on growth is uncertain.

The IFS described the Liberal Democrats' plans as a "radical" tax and spend package, but said that the proposals would require lower borrowing than Conservative or Labour plans. The report said they were the only party whose proposals would put debt "on a decisively downward path", praising their plan to put 1p on income tax to go to the NHS as "simple, progressive and would raise a secure level of revenue". The IFS also said plans to "virtually quintuple" current spending levels on universal free childcare amounted to "creating a whole new leg of the universal welfare state".

The IFS said that the SNP's manifesto was not costed. Their proposals on spending increases and tax cuts would mean the UK government would have to borrow to cover day-to-day spending. They conclude that the SNP's plans for Scottish independence would likely require increased austerity.

Members of Parliament not standing for re-election

Main article: List of MPs standing down at the 2019 United Kingdom general election

A total of 74 MPs who held seats at the end of the Parliament did not stand for re-election.

Opinion polling

Main article: Opinion polling for the 2019 United Kingdom general election

The chart below depicts the results of opinion polls, mostly only of voters in Great Britain, conducted from the 2017 United Kingdom general election until the present. The line plotted is the average of the last 15 polls and the larger circles at the end represent the actual results of the election.

Great Britain opinion polling; moving average is calculated from the last 15 polls.

  Conservatives

  Labour

  Liberal Democrats

  Brexit Party

  SNP & Plaid Cymru

  Greens

  Independent Group for Change

  UKIP

Predictions three weeks before the vote

The first-past-the-post system used in UK general elections means that the number of seats won is not directly related to vote share. Thus, several approaches are used to convert polling data and other information into seat predictions. The table below lists some of the predictions.

Parties		Electoral Calculus as of 20 November 2019	Election Maps UK as of 17 November 2019	Elections Etc as of 20 November 2019	BritainElects as of 20 November 2019
bgcolor="Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Conservatives	365	346	354	346
bgcolor="Template:Labour Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Labour Party	201	211	206	211
bgcolor="Template:Scottish National Party/meta/color" |	SNP	46	51	45	51
bgcolor="Template:Liberal Democrats (UK)/meta/color" |	Liberal Democrats	19	18	25	24
bgcolor="Template:Plaid Cymru/meta/color" |	Plaid Cymru	4	4	4	4
bgcolor="Template:Green Party of England and Wales/meta/color" |	Green Party	1	1	1	1
bgcolor="Template:Brexit Party/meta/color" |	Brexit Party	0	0	0	0
bgcolor="Template:Independent (politician)/meta/color" |	Others	18	19	18	18
Overall result (probability)		Conservative 80 seat majority	Conservative 42 seat majority	Conservative 58 seat majority	Conservative 42 seat majority

Predictions two weeks before the vote

Parties		Electoral Calculus as of 27 November 2019	Election Maps UK as of 28 November 2019	Elections Etc as of 27 November 2019	YouGov as of 27 November 2019
bgcolor="Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Conservatives	342	338	353	359
bgcolor="Template:Labour Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Labour Party	224	226	208	211
bgcolor="Template:Scottish National Party/meta/color" |	SNP	41	45	44	43
bgcolor="Template:Liberal Democrats (UK)/meta/color" |	Liberal Democrats	19	14	23	13
bgcolor="Template:Plaid Cymru/meta/color" |	Plaid Cymru	4	5	4	4
bgcolor="Template:Green Party of England and Wales/meta/color" |	Green Party	1	1	1	1
bgcolor="Template:Brexit Party/meta/color" |	Brexit Party	0	0	0	0
bgcolor="Template:Independent (politician)/meta/color" |	Others	19	19	19	19
Overall result		Conservative 34 seat majority	Conservative 26 seat majority	Conservative 56 seat majority	Conservative 68 seat majority

Note: Elections etc does not add up to 650 seats due to rounding; the Speaker is shown under "Others" and not "Labour"; majority figures assume all elected members take up their seats.

Predictions one week before the vote

Prediction based upon polls:

Parties		Electoral Calculus as of 8 December 2019	Election Maps UK as of 6 December 2019	Elections Etc as of 5 December 2019	UK-Elect as of 8 December 2019
bgcolor="Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Conservatives	348	345	346	354
bgcolor="Template:Labour Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Labour Party	225	224	218	212
bgcolor="Template:Scottish National Party/meta/color" |	SNP	41	43	45	43
bgcolor="Template:Liberal Democrats (UK)/meta/color" |	Liberal Democrats	13	14	19	17
bgcolor="Template:Plaid Cymru/meta/color" |	Plaid Cymru	4	4	4	4
bgcolor="Template:Green Party of England and Wales/meta/color" |	Green Party	1	1	1	1
bgcolor="Template:Brexit Party/meta/color" |	Brexit Party	0	0	0	0
bgcolor="Template:Independent (politician)/meta/color" |	Others	19	19	19	19
Overall result		Conservative 46 seat majority	Conservative 40 seat majority	Conservative 42 seat majority	Conservative 58 seat majority

Note: Elections etc does not add up to 650 seats due to rounding; the Speaker is shown under "Others" and not "Labour"; majority figures assume all elected members take up their seats.

Prediction based upon betting odds (assuming the favourite wins in each constituency):

Parties		Oddschecker
bgcolor="Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Conservatives	351
bgcolor="Template:Labour Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Labour Party	210
bgcolor="Template:Scottish National Party/meta/color" |	SNP	44
bgcolor="Template:Liberal Democrats (UK)/meta/color" |	Liberal Democrats	18
bgcolor="Template:Plaid Cymru/meta/color" |	Plaid Cymru	4
bgcolor="Template:Green Party of England and Wales/meta/color" |	Green Party	1
bgcolor="Template:Brexit Party/meta/color" |	Brexit Party	0
bgcolor="Template:Independent (politician)/meta/color" |	Others	19
bgcolor="Template:Independent (politician)/meta/color" |	Too close to call	3
Overall result		Conservative 52 seat majority

Note: The Speaker is shown under "Others" and not "Labour"; majority figures assume all elected members take up their seats.

Final predictions

Parties		YouGov as of 10 December 2019	Electoral Calculus as of 12 December 2019	Election Maps UK as of 12 December 2019	Elections Etc as of 12 December 2019	UK-Elect as of 11 December 2019
bgcolor="Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Conservatives	339	351	344	341	348
bgcolor="Template:Labour Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Labour Party	231	224	223	224	217
bgcolor="Template:Scottish National Party/meta/color" |	SNP	41	41	45	43	44
bgcolor="Template:Liberal Democrats (UK)/meta/color" |	Liberal Democrats	15	13	14	19	17
bgcolor="Template:Plaid Cymru/meta/color" |	Plaid Cymru	4	2	4	4	4
bgcolor="Template:Green Party of England and Wales/meta/color" |	Green Party	1	1	1	1	1
bgcolor="Template:Brexit Party/meta/color" |	Brexit Party	0	0	0	1	0
bgcolor="Template:Independent (politician)/meta/color" |	Others	19	18	18	19	19
Overall result		style="text-align:center; background:Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color; color:white" | Conservative 28 seat majority	style="text-align:center; background:Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color; color:white" | Conservative 52 seat majority	style="text-align:center; background:Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color; color:white" | Conservative 38 seat majority	style="text-align:center; background:Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color; color:white" | Conservative 32 seat majority	style="text-align:center; background:Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color; color:white" | Conservative 46 seat majority

Exit poll

An exit poll conducted by Ipsos MORI for the BBC, ITV and Sky News, was published at the end of voting at 10 pm, predicting the number of seats for each party.

Parties		Seats	Change
bgcolor="Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Conservative Party	368	51
bgcolor="Template:Labour Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Labour Party	191	71
bgcolor="Template:Scottish National Party/meta/color" |	Scottish National Party	55	20
bgcolor="Template:Liberal Democrats (UK)/meta/color" |	Liberal Democrats	13	1
bgcolor="Template:Plaid Cymru/meta/color" |	Plaid Cymru	3	1
bgcolor="Template:Green Party of England and Wales/meta/color" |	Green Party	1
bgcolor="Template:Brexit Party/meta/color" |	Brexit Party	0	New party
bgcolor="Template:Independent (politician)/meta/color" |	Others	19
Conservative 86 seat majority

Full results

For results by county/region and analysis, see Results breakdown of the 2019 United Kingdom general election.

For complete results by individual constituency, see Results of the 2019 United Kingdom general election.

 
Results of the December 2019 general election to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom

Political party		Leader	Candidates	MPs					Votes
				Total	Gained	Lost	Net	Of total (%)	Total	Of total (%)	Change (%)
	Conservative	Boris Johnson	635	365	58	10	48	56.2	13,966,454	43.63	+1.2
	Labour	Jeremy Corbyn	631	202	1	61	60	31.1	10,269,051	32.08	−7.9
	Liberal Democrats	Jo Swinson	611	11	3	4	1	1.7	3,696,419	11.55	+4.2
	Scottish National Party	Nicola Sturgeon	59	48	14	1	13	7.4	1,242,380	3.88	+0.8
	Green Party of England and Wales	Siân Berry and Jonathan Bartley	472	1	0	0	0	0.2	835,597	2.61	+1.1
	Brexit Party	Nigel Farage	275						644,257	2.01
	DUP	Arlene Foster	17	8	0	2	2	1.2	244,128	0.76	−0.1
	Sinn Féin	Mary Lou McDonald	15	7	1	1	0	1.1	181,853	0.57	−0.2
	Plaid Cymru	Adam Price	36	4	0	0	0	0.6	153,265	0.48	0.0
	Alliance	Naomi Long	18	1	1	0	1	0.2	134,115	0.42	+0.2
	SDLP	Colum Eastwood	15	2	2	0	2	0.3	118,737	0.37	+0.1
	UUP	Steve Aiken	16						93,123	0.29	0.0
	Yorkshire	Christopher Whitwood	28						29,201	0.09	0.0
	Scottish Greens	Patrick Harvie & Lorna Slater	22						28,122	0.09
	Speaker	Lindsay Hoyle	1	1	1	1	0	0.2	26,831	0.08	0.0
	UKIP	Patricia Mountain (interim)	44						22,817	0.07	−1.8
	Ashfield Ind.	Jason Zadrozny	1						13,498	0.04	0.0
	Liberal	Steve Radford	19						10,876	0.03	0.0
	The Independent Group for Change	Anna Soubry	3						10,006	0.03
	Aontú	Peadar Tóibín	7						9,814	0.03
	Monster Raving Loony	Howling Laud Hope	24						9,739	0.03	0.0
	People Before Profit	Collective	2						7,526	0.02
	Birkenhead Social Justice	Frank Field	1						7,285	0.02
	CPA	Sidney Cordle	29						6,486	0.02	0.0
	Heavy Woollen Independents	Aleksandar Lukic	1						6,432	0.02
	SDP	William Clouston	20						3,295	0.01	0.0
	Animal Welfare	Vanessa Hudson	6						3,086	0.01	0.0
	North East	Mark Burdon	2						2,637	0.01
	Lincolnshire Independent	Marianne Overton	1						1,999	0.01
	Green Party Northern Ireland	Clare Bailey	3						1,996	0.01
	English Democrat	Robin Tilbrook	5						1,987	0.01	0.0
	Libertarian	Adam Brown	6						1,780	0.01	0.0
	Mebyon Kernow	Dick Cole	1						1,660	0.01	0.0
	Proud of Oldham and Saddleworth	Paul Errock	2						1,606	0.01
	Independent Network	Ian Stephens	1						1,542	0.0
	Gwlad	Gwyn Wigley Evans	3						1,515	0.00
	Cynon Valley	Andrew Chainey	1						1,322	0.00
	VPP	Robin Horsfall	2						1,219	0.00
	Burnley and Padiham Party	Mark Payne	1						1,162	0.00
	Shropshire Party	Robert Jones	1						1,141	0.00
	Putting Cumbria First	Jonathan Davies	1						1,070	0.00
	Peace	John Morris	2						960	0.00
	Wycombe Independents	Matt Knight	1						926	0.00
	JAC	Donald Jerrard	3						728	0.00
	Christian	Jeff Green	2						705	0.00	0.0
	Renew	Julie Girling	4						545	0.00	0.0
	Workers Revolutionary	Joshua Ogunleye	5						524	0.00	0.0
	BNP	Adam Walker	1						510	0.00	0.0
Parties with fewer than 500 votes each			40						5,697	0.02
Independent (non-party) candidates			224			1	1		206,486	0.64
Blank and invalid votes									117,919	—	—
Total			3320	650			0	100	32,014,110	100	0.0
Registered voters, and turnout									47,587,254	67.52	−1.3

An equal area projection of constituencies

See also

• 2019 in politics and government
• 2010s in United Kingdom political history

External links

Early Parliamentary General Election Act 2019

• Early Parliamentary General Election Act 2019 official text
• Early Parliamentary General Election Bill 2019-20, Progress in Parliament
• Institute for Government: General Election 2019

Party manifestos

• Conservative
  • Accessible Versions
  • Costings Document
• Labour
  • Costings Document
• Liberal Democrats
  • Accessible Versions
  • Costings Document
• Green Party
  • Accessible Versions
• The Brexit Party