As the United Kingdom goes to polls in the general elections on Thursday, December 12, 2019, we look into how the winner of the elections will be determined.
This year the polls have been extremely volatile, with three different parties having taken the lead at some point.
However, since there are 650 seats in parliament this means 650 MPs – one for every constituency.
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Each constituency gets the opportunity to vote for their favourite candidate in a general election in what is known as the First Past the Post system.
The candidate with the most votes becomes the MP (Member of Parliament) for that constituency, representing their constituents in the House of Commons.
MPs hold their seats until Parliament is dissolved.
To have a majority in Parliament means that one party has at least one more seat than all the others put together, meaning it is likely to win votes on policies and plans and this reveals that a party needs at least 326 seats in the House of Commons to have a majority.
When the last parliament was dissolved on November 6, 2019, the Conservatives had 298 MPs, this really explains why Boris Johnson is hoping that a general election will win him more seats and help him secure a majority.
In the case where if no one party gets a majority, it is called a ‘hung parliament’ and should that happen, the party with the most votes can form a coalition government with other parties to gain a majority.
But that doesn’t mean it’s plain sailing as those parties might not necessarily agree on every issue.
If a party does get a majority, then the party with the most seats will be asked to form a Government by Her Majesty the Queen.
But, according to the Parliament website, a Government must be able to command a majority in the House of Commons “on votes of confidence and supply”.
The majority can be their own party but can also include support from other parties – even without a formal coalition arrangement.
But if they can’t, the Prime Minister would have to ask the Queen to invite someone else to form a government.
