The BBC has calculated the number of votes received by each party, for the 648 districts for which results have been released. These figures will change slightly when the last two districts are counted.
Conservative 10,681,417, 36.1%
Labour 8,501,441, 29.1%
Liberal Democrat 6,805,665, 23.0%
UK Independence 914,811, 3.1%
British National Party 562,977, 1.9%
Scottish National Party 491,386, 1.7%
Green 284,566, 1.0%
Sinn Fein 171,942 .6%
Democratic Unionist Party 168,216 .6%
Plaid Cymru 165,394 .6%
Social Democratic & Labour Party 110,970 .4%
Ulster Conservatives and Unionists – New Force 102,361, .3%
English Democrats 64,826, .2%
Alliance Party 42,762 .1%
Respect-Unity Coalition 33,251 .1%
Traditional Unionist Voice 26,300 .1%
Christian Party 18,623 .1%
Independent Community and Health Concern 16,150 .1%
Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition 12,275 .0%
Scottish Socialist Party 3,157 .0%
others 319,891 1.1%
The Libertarian Party had two candidates, and their vote is included in “other”, above. Nic Coombe got 141 votes, or .3% in the Devizes district. Martin Cullip got 41 votes, or .1% in the Sutton and Cheam district. Thanks to Eric Garris for the link. See here for more detail.
Why did the Libertarian candidates get a special mention?
The Monster Raving Loony Party got several hundred more in many constituencies and they are the national joke.
Many of this blog’s readers are Libertarians here in the USA, so I knew many of the readers would want to see that.
Richard:
Do you have any commentary on what happened to the Liberal Democratic Party? With all the press showered on their leader in the debates, it must be a very bitter pill for them to end up winning 5 “FEWER” seats than they did in 2005.
Wow, they want to remove the minimum wage, housing benefit and re allow using a phone while driving (and without seatbelts too). Their opinions of prostitution and drugs they might as well call themselves Anarchists.
I realised Libertarian values included limiting or completely removing unnecessary funding of pointless Government expenditure especially when it can be covered by the private sector, but these guys might as well legalise Slavery. I did know that there were Libertarian candidates in the US which want to legalise hard and potentially fatal drugs but I thought that was a joke, not common with an entire political spectrum.
No wonder they did so poorly here, I don’t know what’s worse, them or the BNP trying to gas me.
#3: Basically, like usual, the stupid British public thought it turned into a tight race and voted on their usual Red-Blue lines. It turns out that the Liberal Democrats got more votes than before, but it was in the wrong places. Boundary changes might have also played a role, they seemed to unnecessarily promote Conservative gains in a bit of gerrymandering.
Still, its not a problem with the “system” which everyone keeps wanting to change to PR, but the fact that parties simply aren’t strong everywhere and can’t hack it. There is no discrimination against minor parties or Independents here, just cold hard 1 constituency 1 representative. If you don’t win more votes than anyone else you lose simple as that.
Ironically, they might still hold up one party or the other, but the Conservatives know they don’t really need the Liberal Democrats, so unless the Lib Dems break their word and go to Labour the Conservatives can run a Minority Government, probably quite happily for a short time when they’ll call a new election hoping to gain enough for a majority.
Couldn’t Labour just form a coalition with the Lib Dems and a few other minor parties?
One more EVIL and VICIOUS minority rule regime in the nearly dead U.K. — with its DARK AGE gerrymander House of Commons.
UNEQUAL votes for each gerrymander district winner.
UNEQUAL total votes in each gerrymander district.
Lib Dems have enough GUTS aka COURAGE to DEMAND P.R. and separation of powers ???
P.R. legislative and nonpartisan A.V. executive/judicial.
Vaughn,
Yes–but such a coalition would be tenuous since it would involve bringing in the nationalist parties like SNP or Plaid Cymru.
If it is Labour/Lib Dems/Alliance/Green/SDLP, that’s 320. A minority government, but probably more stable than a Conservative/Lib Dem agreement.
Mikebloke- given your attitude I guess I would rather have the BNP gas you!
With any form of Proportional Representation, the Liberal Democrats would have a much bigger block in the House of Commons. The United Kingdom Independence Party would also be represented, as they are (paradoxically) in the European Parliament.
The UKIP received more votes than 7 other parties that did elect members of Parliament – almost 4 times the vote total of the Green Party – and more than the Scottish National Party, Plaid Cymri or the other regional parties.
For any juveniles on this list —
a *democratic* legislative body exists ONLY because ALL the Electors-Voters can NOT generally appear in person and vote on legislation (i.e. on bills).
REAL P.R. = Total Votes / Total Seats = EQUAL votes for each seat winner — with vote transfers of surplus and loser votes = ALL Electors-Voter elect a legislator.
Democracy = Majority Rule — direct or indirect — as compared to 7,000 plus years of EVIL minority rule monarchs / oligarchs.
— such as the party hacks in the U.K. since the 1200s in the House of Commons — especially the nonstop *modern* party hack Prime Ministers – DICTATORS – TYRANTS since 1832 in the U.K.
THE problem, of course, is that way too many nation-state regimes copied the EVIL U.K. *parliamentary* system.
P.R. and A.V. — to END the R-O-T.
Remember 1945 V-E Day in Europe — the deadly cost to END the rule of the EVIL Axis monarchs — due in major part to the super-defective election regimes in the various nations before the Axis tyrants took over in each.
If one totals the percentages for the Labour Party; the Liberal Democratic Party; the Green Party; and the Social Democratic & Labour Party; the amount is 53.5%. That is a clear victory for the center-left forces. By the way, many years ago the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party merged to form the Liberal Democratic Party.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/election2010/results/
The END of jolly olde England — i.e. divide the U.K. regime into Conservative/Lib Dems [south] and Labour/Lib Dems areas [north] ???
and see which new regime goes bankrupt the quickest ???
Phil Sawyer- I believe the SNP and Plaid Cymru are also left of center parties so your point is even stronger that the left won the election despite the inconclusive results. Another reason for electoral reform.
Oh, okay. I had a friend once who wrote his Ph.D. about the Scottish National Party but that was long ago and I do not remember anything about the Party. I don’t know anything about the Plaid Cymru Party either. I wonder what the Traditional Unionist Voice Party is about (that Party received .1 percent). You make a good point about the need for electoral reform.
#16 The TUV split off from the DUP because the DUP agreed to enter into power sharing with Sinn Fein.
I read yesterday in one of the articles about Caroline Lucas winning a seat that Plaid Cymru has a lot in common with the Greens.
Thank you for the clarifications, Jim and Tom.