The ten most surprising facts from the 2024 election revealed
As a landmark study of the 2024 election is published, The Conversation asked Tim Bale, who co-authored with Rob Ford, Will Jennings and Paula Surridge, to reveal the ten most surprising facts to come out of their analysis.
1. Labour lost the campaign
Labour won the election but its support fell a lot more than any other party’s during the campaign period. Labour started the campaign 25 percentage points ahead of the Conservatives and ended it just 15 points ahead.
That was partly because a fair few people who might have voted Labour either voted tactically for the Liberal Democrats in the end or didn’t bother to vote at all as it looked like Labour was heading for an easy win. But the loss was also down to some voters’ concerns about Labour’s lack of ambition and some concerns about its stance on Israel-Gaza. This helps to explain why the Greens enjoyed a late surge.
2. Fear of tax rises wasn’t really a factor
Since coming to office, the government has been plagued by indecision about what to do about taxes and fearful of angering voters.
But our analysis shows voters expected all along that a Starmer government would put taxes up – and they were apparently reconciled to it. Neither Rachel Reeves’s pledges not to increase the big three taxes, nor Tory attacks on Labour tax rises seem to have had any discernible impact on voters’ overall views about the parties’ intentions on tax and spend.
On balance, voters in 2024 felt that taxes in general (if not necessarily their own taxes) should go up to fund spending, meaning Tory promises of tax cuts fell on unusually stony ground.
3. Labour and the Conservatives lost support to more radical alternatives
In the course of the 2024 campaign, Labour lost support to the Greens, who for the first time (and at least where Gaza independents weren’t standing) picked up lots of Muslim voters.
The Tories (especially after Nigel Farage entered the fray) lost support to Reform UK, whose candidates tended to split the right-wing vote. This helped Labour win back many “red wall” seats in the north and the Midlands, as well as helping the Lib Dems take parts of the “blue wall” in the south. That split on the right also spared Labour’s blushes in Wales, where their vote actually declined.
4. Muslim voters turned away from Labour
Muslim voters swung away from Labour to an unprecedented degree in 2024. The loss of support from a community that had long backed the party cost Labour several seats, along with several near misses. Health secretary Wes Streeting’s Ilford North seat (which he won by just 528 votes, down from 5,198 in 2019) was just one example of a close contest.
Though the shift among Muslims was most dramatic, Labour also fell back among Hindu voters. The Conservatives’ sole gain came in Leicester East, the seat with the highest share of Hindu voters in Britain. Labour’s claim to be the natural choice for ethnic minority voters has never looked weaker.
5. The Conservatives ran out of cash
While in office, the Conservatives raised national campaigning limits to around £34 million. But, ironically, and unlike their Labour opponents, they ran out of money before the 2024 campaign was even over.
Party spending in 2024
The lack of cash was especially evident in online campaigning, where Conservative party activity fell off a cliff towards the end, even as Labour efforts ramped sharply up.
6. This was an ‘all politics is local’ election
Local conditions, local campaigning and tactical voting mattered more than ever in the 2024 election. Voters’ behaviour varied more widely from one seat to the next than in any previous recent contest and people were more aware of and responsive to the local stakes in their seat than ever before, making the parties’ voter contact efforts even more important than usual.
7. Scotland is always different
The election campaign in Scotland once again ran along radically different lines to what was happening in England and Wales. There was a huge swing from the SNP to Scottish Labour, with the latter making dramatic gains, sometimes rising to first place from third. This was boosted by tactical voting among people opposed to Scottish independence.
The SNP, incidentally, was particularly active on social media, Labour posted more than Reform on TikTok and Nigel Farage has more page followers on Facebook than the Labour party. But, for all that, this was not the “TikTok election”. Social media matters, especially for younger people, but that’s not where most people go for election coverage.
8. Sadly, the sofa was the biggest winner
Voter turnout fell sharply to the second lowest level in postwar history (just ahead of 2001), and more people stayed home (41%) than voted for the winning Labour party (34%). These figures also don’t take account of the 8.2 million people who are entitled to vote but aren’t registered to do so. Shockingly, only one in five eligible voters voted for the party that was swept into government with a landslide majority.
9. Many party members sat it out too
Perhaps surprisingly, even members of the country’s political parties weren’t feeling excited by this election. Over half of Conservative party members and nearly half of Labour party members said they’d devoted no time at all to helping out their party during the campaign. Fewer than one in five of all party members knocked on doors or picked up the phone to canvass voters. Party members were a little more generous with their money than they were with their time, although Conservative members were notably reluctant this time to donate to the cause.
10. The election reshaped parliament
This is the most ethnically diverse, gender balanced House of Commons in history. But it is also the most inexperienced Commons in modern political history. More than half of MP are currently serving their first elected terms. This includes 56% of the MPs on the Labour government benches – also a record.
Talking of records, there are fewer privately educated MPs sitting in the House of Commons than ever before: just 23%. However, for the first time, the parliamentary Labour party elected in 2024 doesn’t contain a single MP who has arrived in the Commons direct from a job in a manual occupation.
Want more politics coverage from academic experts? Every week, we bring you informed analysis of developments in government and fact check the claims being made.
Sign up for our weekly politics newsletter, delivered every Friday.
This article contains references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and this may include links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something from bookshop.org The Conversation UK may earn a commission.
Tim Bale received funding from Research England for surveys of party members.