British voters will go to the polls on Thursday in a general election to elect new members of parliament.
House of Commons
Voting is underway for the 650 members of the lower house of parliament, each of whom represents a constituency or seat.
A total of 543 seats are in England, 57 in Scotland, 32 in Wales and 18 in Northern Ireland.
This year there are 4,515 candidates: a record.
The rise is due to the decision of the far-right Reform UK party to end its 2019 pledge not to stand against the Conservatives and the addition of more Green Party candidates.
In total, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's Conservatives are fielding candidates for 635 seats, compared with 631 for Keir Starmer's Labour Party and 630 for the Liberal Democrats led by Ed Davey.
Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage, has 609 votes, while Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay's Greens have 629. The rest are standing as smaller parties or independents.
The first one after the post
Polls open at 7:00 a.m. and close at 10:00 p.m. Voters cast their ballot once for a candidate from their constituency by marking a cross on a ballot paper.
Voters must be registered, aged 18 or over, and a British, Irish or Commonwealth citizen, resident in the UK or registered as an overseas voter.
Prisoners and members of the unelected upper house of parliament, the House of Lords, are not allowed to vote.
Votes are counted immediately after voting ends and results are declared from the evening until July 5.
At 21:00 GMT, when polls close, a polling station exit survey commissioned by the BBC, Sky News and ITV News will be published, based on interviews conducted by IPSOS at 133 polling stations across the UK.
The survey of voter behavior is considered an accurate indicator of the outcome.
Hemy UK general elections use a first-past-the-post system, meaning the candidate and party with the most votes wins.
Most
To obtain an absolute majority, a party must win at least 326 seats.
But in reality the figure is lower, since the President – a deputy elected by convention without opposition in his constituency – and his three deputies – also deputies – do not vote in Parliament.
Members of the pro-Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein do not sit in the UK Parliament because they do not recognise British sovereignty over Northern Ireland.
As head of state, the monarch—currently King Charles III—appoints the leader of the largest party in Parliament as prime minister.
The next largest party will be Her Majesty's Official Opposition, with a Shadow Cabinet made up of MPs who act as counterparts to government ministers.
The leader of the opposition faces the prime minister every week in Parliament when it is in session.
A hung parliament is when no party has an absolute majority. The largest party can decide to form a minority government, which requires the support of the other parties to pass laws.
Alternatively, it can negotiate with one or more smaller parties to govern as a formal coalition, as happened in 2010 when the Conservatives governed with the Liberal Democrats.
Function
Members of Parliament examine and vote on government proposals and may sit on parliamentary committees to study the work of the executive as a whole or on specific issues.
Not all policies and legislative proposals fall within the remit of the British parliament in Westminster. Areas such as health, transport, the environment and housing are delegated to lawmakers in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
2019
In the last general election, held on 12 December 2019, Boris Johnson's Conservatives emerged clear winners with 365 seats, compared to Labour's 202.
The Scottish National Party won 48, followed by the Liberal Democrats with 11.
Northern Ireland's pro-UK Democratic Unionist Party won eight seats, compared to Sinn Fein's seven and Welsh nationalist Plaid Cymru's four.
