How many UK MPs won when most voters chose someone else?

General election: 2024 (latest)2019201720152010
649 constituencies elected (30,643,833 valid votes)
334 seats won without majority support (51.5% of constituencies)
Severely disproportional overall vote-to-seat distortion (Gallagher index)

The most extreme case in the 2015 general election: an MP elected on 24.5% of the vote in Belfast South — meaning 75.5% 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 2015 cycle that produced 334 MPs who took less than half the votes in their constituency (51.5% of the 649 seats). The Conservative Party turned 36.9% of votes into 50.8% of seats; UK Independence Party took 12.6% of votes but 0.2% 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 2015 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.

Winning party
  • Conservative Party 330
  • Labour Party 232
  • UK Independence Party 1
  • Liberal Democrats 8
  • Scottish National Party 56
  • Green Party 1

National FPTP audit

Seats won without majority support334 of 649 (51%)
Disproportionality (Gallagher index)Severely disproportional
Largest over-representationConservative Party +14.0% seat-share gap
Largest under-representationUK Independence Party -12.5% seat-share gap
Total seats audited649 across 30,643,833 valid votes

Excluded from headline metrics: 1 speaker. What these tokens mean.

Vote share vs seat share by party

Vote share
Seat share

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.

  • Conservative Party +14 pts
    votes 37%
    seats 51%
  • Labour Party +5 pts
    votes 31%
    seats 36%
  • UK Independence Party −12 pts
    votes 13%
    seats 0%
  • Liberal Democrats −7 pts
    votes 8%
    seats 1%
  • Scottish National Party +4 pts
    votes 5%
    seats 9%
  • Green Party −4 pts
    votes 4%
    seats 0%

122 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.

#ConstituencyWinning partyWinning candidateVotesShare 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
1Belfast South Social Democratic & Labour PartyAlasdair McDonnell9,56024.5%−25.5 pts22.2%
2Southport Liberal DemocratsJohn Pugh13,65231.0%−19.0 pts28.0%
3Ynys Môn Labour PartyAlbert Owen10,87131.1%−18.9 pts30.5%
4Upper Bann Democratic Unionist PartyDavid Simpson15,43032.7%−17.3 pts27.9%
5South Antrim Ulster Unionist PartyDanny Kinahan11,94232.7%−17.3 pts30.1%
6Thurrock Conservative PartyJackie Doyle-Price16,69233.7%−16.3 pts32.6%
7Portsmouth South Conservative PartyFlick Drummond14,58534.8%−15.2 pts22.3%
8Carshalton and Wallington Liberal DemocratsTom Brake16,60334.9%−15.1 pts31.7%
9Hartlepool Labour PartyIain Wright14,07635.6%−14.4 pts28.0%
10Bristol West Labour PartyThangam Debbonaire22,90035.7%−14.3 pts26.8%
11Ceredigion Liberal DemocratsMark Williams13,41435.9%−14.1 pts27.7%
12Cambridge Labour PartyDaniel Zeichner18,64636.0%−14.0 pts34.9%
13East Antrim Democratic Unionist PartySammy Wilson12,10336.1%−13.9 pts18.8%
14Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk Scottish National PartyCalum Kerr20,14536.6%−13.4 pts36.0%
15Derby North Conservative PartyAmanda Solloway16,40236.7%−13.3 pts36.6%
16Leeds North West Liberal DemocratsGreg Mulholland15,94836.8%−13.2 pts30.1%
17Bridgend Labour PartyMadeleine Moon14,62437.1%−12.9 pts32.2%
18Gower Conservative PartyByron Davies15,86237.1%−12.9 pts37.0%
19Clwyd South Labour PartySusan Elan Jones13,05137.2%−12.8 pts30.4%
20Wrexham Labour PartyIan Lucas12,18137.2%−12.8 pts31.6%

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).