[Séminaire général du CEE] The Most Disproportionate UK Election: 2024 - How the UK Labour Party Doubled its Seat Share with a 1.6 point Increase in Vote Share

How convincing was the UK Labour Party’s election win in the 2024 UK General Election? The Labour Party doubled its seats in the 2024 UK General Election, wining a landslide majority, but with only a 1.6 point increase in vote share. This talk will explain this unprecedented improvement in ‘vote efficiency’ by providing evidence for three constituency-level explanations tied to anti-incumbent voting in the UK in 2024; (i) the local race increased tactical voting in areas Labour needed to gain, and increased ‘sincere’ voting for other parties where Labour didn’t need as many votes, increasing efficiency overall; (ii) Reform UK lowered the threshold needed for Labour to take more constituencies, particularly from the Conservatives; and (iii) Labour outperformed its national success in Scotland, more easily winning in the high proportion of marginal constituencies, with a ‘double anti-incumbent’ vote. These results are informative for the stability of Labour’s electoral coalition in the future. Relying on swings driven by anti-Conservative tactical voting and the fragmentation of the electoral right, Labour’s majority rests on factors largely unrelated to the party’s own electoral popularity.

Speaker:

Jane Green is Professor of Political Science and British Politics at Nuffield College and the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford, where she has worked since 2018. 

She is the Director of the Nuffield Politics Research Centre, Co-Director of the British Election Study (since 2013), President of the British Polling Council, and an Election Analyst for ITV News. She was formerly based at the University of Manchester. She completed her DPhil at Nuffield College, Oxford, in 2007. 

Jane is co-author of ‘The Politics of Competence: Voters, Parties, Public Opinion and Voters’ (2017, Cambridge University Press), ‘Electoral Shocks: The Volatile Voter in a Turbulent World’ (2020, Oxford University Press), and ‘Electoral Realignment: How Brexit Re-Shaped British Elections (forthcoming, Oxford University Press). She has published numerous papers on polarisation, competence, issue ownership, electoral change in Britain, and the economic basis of electoral behaviour, including the Brexit vote, in journals including the British Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, Comparative Political Studies, Political Behavior and Electoral Studies. She takes a particular interest in survey measurement and survey question design, and she is an Editorial Board member of Comparative Political Studies, as well as serving on numerous other Advisory Boards and steering committees. 

Jane’s current research projects focus on British electoral behaviour, economic insecurity and electoral behaviour (US and UK), and intergenerational politics. She also leads a project conducting research syntheses addressing topical questions of public and political concern, and has won prizes for research communication and impact.

Jane was made an International Honorary Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2023, and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, in 2018. 

Chair:

Patrick Le Galès, Sciences Po, CEE

Discussant:

Colin Hay, Sciences Po, CEE