election 2019

The 2019 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 12 December 2019. It resulted in the Conservative Party receiving a landslide majority of 80 seats. The Conservatives made a net gain of 48 seats and won 43.6% of the popular vote – the highest percentage for any party since 1979.Having failed to obtain a majority in the 2017 general election, the Conservative Party had faced prolonged parliamentary deadlock over Brexit while it governed in minority with the support of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). This situation led to the resignation of the Prime Minister, Theresa May, and the selection of Boris Johnson as Conservative leader and Prime Minister in July 2019. Johnson could not induce Parliament to approve a revised wí†hdráwal agreement by the end of October, and chose to call for a snap election, which the House of Commons supported via the Early Parliamentary General Election Act 2019. Opinion polls up to polling day showed a firm lead for the Conservatives against the Labour Party throughout the campaign.The Conservatives won 365 seats, their highest number and proportion of seats since 1987, and recorded their highest share of the popular vote since 1979; many of their gains were made in long-held Labour seats, dubbed the 'red wall', which had registered a strong 'Leave' vote in the 2016 EU referendum. Labour won 202 seats, its lowest number and proportion of seats since 1935. The Scottish National Party (SNP) made a net gain of 13 seats and won 3.9% of the UK vote (translating to 45% of the popular vote in Scotland), resulting in 48 out of 59 seats won in Scotland. The Liberal Democrats improved their vote share to 11.6% but won only 11 seats, a net loss of one since the last election. The DUP won a plurality of seats in Northern Ireland. There, the SDLP and Alliance regained parliamentary representation as the DUP lost seats.
The election result gave Johnson the mandate he sought from the electorate to formally implement the UK’s departure from the European Union on 31 January 2020 and repeal the European Communities Act 1972, thereby ending hopes of the Remain movement of overturning the result of the 2016 referendum. Labour's defeat led to Jeremy Corbyn conceding defeat and announcing his intention to resign, triggering a leadership election won by Keir Starmer. For Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson, the loss of her constituency seat compelled her to resign as well, triggering a leadership election, which was won by Ed Davey. The party's leader in Wales, Jane Dodds, was also unseated. For the SNP leader, Nicola Sturgeon, her party's landslide victory in Scotland led to renewed calls for a second independence referendum. In Northern Ireland, nationalist MPs outnumbered unionist ones for the first time, although the unionist popular vote remained higher (43.1%).

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