Since British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called a surprise snap general election in a rain-soaked announcement outside 10 Downing Street in late May, the election campaign, which has been littered with political scandals and gaffes, has unfolded at breakneck speed.
Political analysts and polls are predicting a historic election with the main opposition Labour Party poised to usurp the Conservatives, who after 14 years in power now face a run-off election for the opposition against the right-wing populist Reform UK party.
It will all be settled on Thursday this week, when British voters head to polling stations across the country to cast their ballots in the 2024 general election.
Here’s what you need to know about Election Day:
How and when will the UK general election take place?
The 2024 UK general election will take place on Thursday 4 July, between 7:00 am (06:00 GMT) and 10:00 pm (21:00 GMT).
Registered voters in the 650 parliamentary constituencies will cast their ballots for their preferred candidate at polling stations set up for the day, usually in schools or community centres.
The United Kingdom uses a first-past-the-post (FPTP) voting system, an old race-to-win metaphor in which the candidate with the most votes becomes the MP for that constituency, whether or not they received 50% of the votes cast.
First-past-the-post voting differs from the proportional representation (PR) system, used in most European countries, and from a system like that used in France in its elections (the first round was held on June 30; the second round will be held on July 7), in which constituencies that do not give a majority of votes to a given candidate move to a second round of voting.
In the proportional representation system, parliamentary seats are allocated proportionally to the number of votes received by each party.
Once polling stations close across the UK, votes will be counted and the MPs with the most votes in each constituency (each constituency has one seat in Parliament) will be declared the winners in the early hours of 5 July.
If a party wins a majority of seats – as is expected for Labour – its leader becomes prime minister and the leader of the party with the second-largest number of MPs usually becomes leader of the opposition. Keir Starmer is the leader of the Labour Party, while Sunak leads the Conservative Party in the election.
If no party obtains a majority, a parliament without an absolute majority will be proclaimed. In this case, the largest party may choose to form a coalition with other parties.
Why did Rishi Sunak call the election for July 4?
General elections in the UK should not be held more than five years apart.
The last general election was in December 2019, meaning Prime Minister Sunak had until December to call an election.
The prime minister took the nation by surprise when he called early elections on May 22.
It is a decision that John Curtice, professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde, says remains an “absolute mystery” to anyone outside Sunak’s inner circle.
Curtice said there were various “speculative theories” circulating, including the idea that the Conservatives may have believed the economic outlook would not improve until the end of the year.
Another possibility was that the ruling Conservative Party was unconvinced it could stem the record number of asylum seekers crossing the Channel that separates southern England from northern France.
The Conservatives have made several commitments to end irregular immigration, including a highly controversial plan to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda.
Why are the Conservatives doing so poorly in the polls?
Since 2019, when the Conservatives won the last general election with a landslide majority, the party has struggled with issues of “trust and competence”, Jonathan Tonge, a professor of politics at the University of Liverpool, told Al Jazeera.
A scandal dating back to the COVID-19 pandemic, known as “partygate,” has damaged public trust in government and led Boris Johnson to resign as prime minister in 2022.
Johnson has been accused of hosting a birthday party and other events that breached the strict lockdown rules he imposed on the British public.
He was replaced by Liz Truss, who oversaw a chaotic six-week tenure that sent markets into freefall.
Tonge said that at this point the Conservatives “lost the trust of the British public”, with Boris Johnson going from a “popular figure to someone who was seen as untrustworthy” and Labour overtaking the ruling party in the polls shortly afterwards.
Recently, another scandal erupted when the UK Gambling Commission announced it was investigating individuals linked to the party, including two Conservative candidates, Craig Williams and Laura Saunders, for betting on a July election three days before Sunak announced the date. The party subsequently removed Williams and Saunders from its list of candidates.
Tonge said the skills problem was due to a perceived lack of “real improvements” for the British public over the past 14 years.
He said that by some indicators they had performed well, with inflation falling again and unemployment remaining consistently low.
However, on social issues, which include “the significant increase in waiting lists for the National Health Service and the failure to implement key policies such as reducing immigration, the Conservatives appear to have failed to deliver on their promises.”
What is the Reform UK political party and what are its chances?
Reform UK, led by populist figurehead Nigel Farage, stood in the 2019 general election as the Brexit Party, but did not contest any Conservative-held constituencies.
It failed to win any seats then, but according to the latest polls, this year the renamed party is challenging the Conservatives for second place.
Farage’s fiery campaign, marked by a wave of chauvinistic rhetoric focused on immigration, contributed greatly to their rise.
Curtice said Farage had come across as “charismatic and articulate”, qualities that contrast sharply with Sunak’s campaign, which included a gaffe in which he prematurely left the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings.
Curtice said that by focusing on immigration reform, the UK was not targeting a particularly crucial issue in explaining why people were leaving the Conservatives, but was “advertising the failure of the policy”.
“If you are unhappy with the government and you are in the pro-Brexit, anti-immigration camp, Reform UK is the place to go,” he said.
What is the most likely outcome?
According to the latest polls, the Labour Party is the big favourite to win a majority.
According to Curtice, the polls point to historically low results for the Conservatives, who face a very difficult “arithmetical reality” as their voters vote most in the constituencies they are trying to defend. Yet, unlike in 2019, Reform UK will challenge them in these areas.
Tonge said he expected turnout to be slightly lower than in the last election – estimated at 67.3% – when the country was gripped by a national “fervour” over how the UK should behave in the 2016 Brexit referendum.
Voter engagement, he said, does not appear to be as strong this election cycle, and the data suggests a degree of voter disillusionment with the two main parties, Labour and the Conservatives, that have traditionally dominated British politics.
He says the rise of Labour can be attributed more to a “Tory implosion” than to popular politics.
Tonge predicted an “apathetic landslide” for Labour, which could result in a slightly lower turnout than in the last election.
He said winning more than 100 seats would be a good result for the Conservatives in this election, based on current forecasts. It would mark a significant drop from the 2019 general election, when they won 365 seats.
Tonge said such an outcome would provoke an “ideological and political debate at the heart and soul of the British political right”. The Conservatives would be faced with a choice between following the “Farage path” – tougher immigration rules and tax cuts – or leaving Reform UK and trying to rebuild themselves as a centre-right party.
