How many UK MPs won when most voters chose someone else?
The most extreme case in the 2010 general election: an MP elected on 29.4% of the vote in Norwich South — meaning 70.6% of people who voted there chose someone else, and they still won the seat. Under First Past the Post that’s how every Westminster contest works: a candidate wins by being top of the poll, regardless of share, with no minimum threshold. Across the whole 2010 cycle that produced 433 MPs who took less than half the votes in their constituency (66.7% of the 649 seats). The Conservative Party turned 36.1% of votes into 47.1% of seats; Liberal Democrats took 23.1% of votes but 8.8% of seats. Across the whole result the vote-to-seat gap was severely disproportional — see the Gallagher index for how that's measured.
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Constituencies, coloured by winning party
Every Westminster constituency under 2010 boundaries, shaded by the party that took the seat. Hover for the winning share; click to open the full candidate record. Northern Ireland is included — Westminster elections use First Past the Post across the whole UK.
- Conservative Party 306
- Labour Party 258
- Liberal Democrats 57
- UK Independence Party 0
- British National Party 0
- Scottish National Party 6
National FPTP audit
| Seats won without majority support | 433 of 649 (67%) |
|---|---|
| Disproportionality (Gallagher index) | Severely disproportional |
| Largest over-representation | Conservative Party +11.0% seat-share gap |
| Largest under-representation | Liberal Democrats -14.3% seat-share gap |
| Total seats audited | 649 across 29,639,269 valid votes |
Excluded from headline metrics: 1 speaker. What these tokens mean.
Vote share vs seat share by party
Each party gets its own pair below: filled bar for vote share, outlined bar for seat share. The signed gap on the right is what First Past the Post produced — not what any party did wrong.
124 smaller parties (under 1% of valid votes) hidden — the full party-by-party totals are in the CSV downloads.
Constituencies won without majority support — lowest winning shares
Every row here is a constituency where First Past the Post seated a candidate the majority of voters did not back. The winning candidate’s name appears as a factual record of who took the seat; the subject of analysis is the voting method that produced the result.
| # | Constituency | Winning party | Winning candidate | Votes | Share of votes Winning candidate's votes ÷ valid votes in the constituency. | Below quota Winner's share minus the proportional quota (50% for a single-member seat). Negative = won the seat below the quota. | Runner-up share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Norwich South | Liberal Democrats | Simon Wright | 13,960 | 29.4% | −20.6 pts | 28.7% |
| 2 | Brighton, Pavilion | Green Party | Caroline Lucas | 16,238 | 31.3% | −18.7 pts | 28.9% |
| 3 | Argyll and Bute | Liberal Democrats | Alan Reid | 14,292 | 31.6% | −18.4 pts | 24.0% |
| 4 | Oldham East and Saddleworth | Labour Party | Phil Woolas | 14,186 | 31.9% | −18.1 pts | 31.6% |
| 5 | Great Grimsby | Labour Party | Austin Mitchell | 10,777 | 32.7% | −17.3 pts | 30.5% |
| 6 | Hampstead and Kilburn | Labour Party | Glenda Jackson | 17,332 | 32.8% | −17.2 pts | 32.7% |
| 7 | Birmingham, Hall Green | Labour Party | Roger Godsiff | 16,039 | 32.9% | −17.1 pts | 25.1% |
| 8 | Derby North | Labour Party | Chris Williamson | 14,896 | 33.0% | −17.0 pts | 31.7% |
| 9 | Ynys Môn | Labour Party | Albert Owen | 11,490 | 33.4% | −16.6 pts | 26.2% |
| 10 | Ashfield | Labour Party | Gloria de Piero | 16,239 | 33.7% | −16.3 pts | 33.3% |
| 11 | Bradford East | Liberal Democrats | David Ward | 13,637 | 33.7% | −16.3 pts | 32.8% |
| 12 | Upper Bann | Democratic Unionist Party | David Simpson | 14,000 | 33.8% | −16.2 pts | 25.7% |
| 13 | South Antrim | Democratic Unionist Party | William McCrea | 11,536 | 33.9% | −16.1 pts | 30.4% |
| 14 | Northampton North | Conservative Party | Michael Ellis | 13,735 | 34.1% | −15.9 pts | 29.3% |
| 15 | Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport | Conservative Party | Oliver Colvile | 15,050 | 34.3% | −15.7 pts | 31.7% |
| 16 | East Londonderry | Democratic Unionist Party | Gregory Campbell | 12,097 | 34.6% | −15.4 pts | 19.3% |
| 17 | Swansea West | Labour Party | Geraint Davies | 12,335 | 34.7% | −15.3 pts | 33.2% |
| 18 | Edinburgh South | Labour Party | Ian Murray | 15,215 | 34.7% | −15.3 pts | 34.0% |
| 19 | Luton South | Labour Party | Gavin Shuker | 14,725 | 34.9% | −15.1 pts | 29.4% |
| 20 | Watford | Conservative Party | Richard Harrington | 19,291 | 34.9% | −15.1 pts | 32.4% |
Sorted ascending by winning share. Click a constituency name to see the full candidate record.
How these numbers are computed: methodology. Source data: UK Parliament psephology database, retrieved 2026-05-19, generated 2026-05-19 (Open Parliament Licence v3.0).