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

General election: 2024 (latest)2019201720152010
649 constituencies elected (28,775,376 valid votes)
554 seats won without majority support (85.4% of constituencies)
Severely disproportional overall vote-to-seat distortion (Gallagher index)

The most extreme case in the 2024 general election: an MP elected on 26.7% of the vote in South West Norfolk — meaning 73.3% 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 2024 cycle that produced 554 MPs who took less than half the votes in their constituency (85.4% of the 649 seats). The Labour Party turned 33.7% of votes into 63.3% of seats; Reform UK took 14.3% of votes but 0.8% 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 2024 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
  • Labour Party 411
  • Conservative Party 121
  • Reform UK 5
  • Liberal Democrats 72
  • Green Party 4
  • Scottish National Party 9

National FPTP audit

Seats won without majority support554 of 649 (85%)
Disproportionality (Gallagher index)Severely disproportional
Largest over-representationLabour Party +29.6% seat-share gap
Largest under-representationReform UK -13.5% seat-share gap
Total seats audited649 across 28,775,376 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.

  • Labour Party +30 pts
    votes 34%
    seats 63%
  • Conservative Party −5 pts
    votes 24%
    seats 19%
  • Reform UK −14 pts
    votes 14%
    seats 1%
  • Liberal Democrats −1 pts
    votes 12%
    seats 11%
  • Green Party −6 pts
    votes 7%
    seats 1%
  • Scottish National Party −1 pts
    votes 3%
    seats 1%
  • Independent −1 pts
    votes 2%
    seats 1%

89 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
1South West Norfolk Labour PartyTerry Jermy11,84726.7%−23.3 pts25.3%
2Blackburn IndependentAdnan Hussain10,51827.0%−23.0 pts26.7%
3East Londonderry Democratic Unionist PartyGregory Campbell11,50627.9%−22.1 pts27.4%
4North Antrim Traditional Unionist VoiceJim Allister11,64228.3%−21.7 pts27.2%
5Exmouth and Exeter East Conservative PartyDavid Reed14,72828.7%−21.3 pts28.5%
6East Antrim Democratic Unionist PartySammy Wilson11,46228.9%−21.1 pts25.6%
7Sittingbourne and Sheppey Labour PartyKevin McKenna11,91929.1%−20.9 pts28.2%
8Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr Labour PartySteve Witherden12,70929.4%−20.6 pts20.6%
9Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe Liberal DemocratsDavid Chadwick13,73629.5%−20.5 pts26.3%
10Dumfries and Galloway Conservative PartyJohn Cooper13,52729.6%−20.4 pts27.5%
11Aylesbury Labour PartyLaura Kyrke-Smith15,08130.2%−19.8 pts28.9%
12Spelthorne Conservative PartyLincoln Jopp14,03830.4%−19.6 pts27.0%
13Maidstone and Malling Conservative PartyHelen Grant14,14630.5%−19.5 pts26.9%
14Isle of Wight East Conservative PartyJoe Robertson10,42730.6%−19.4 pts20.8%
15Bridgwater Conservative PartyAshley Fox12,28130.6%−19.4 pts27.2%
16Basildon and Billericay Conservative PartyRichard Holden12,90530.6%−19.4 pts30.6%
17Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley Labour PartyTahir Ali12,79830.8%−19.2 pts17.2%
18Havant Conservative PartyAlan Mak12,98630.8%−19.2 pts30.6%
19South Basildon and East Thurrock Reform UKJames McMurdock12,17830.8%−19.2 pts30.5%
20Leicester East Conservative PartyShivani Raja14,52631.1%−18.9 pts21.6%

Sorted ascending by winning share. Click a constituency name to see the full candidate record.

How these numbers are computed: methodology. Source data: House of Commons Library general election results 2024, retrieved 2026-05-18, generated 2026-05-19 (Open Parliament Licence v3.0).