General Election 2015: Business as Usual or New Departure?
| Author | John Curtice |
| Published date | 01 September 2015 |
| Date | 01 September 2015 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/2041-9066.12092 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
4 POLITICAL INSIGHT • SEPTEMBER 2015
In some respects the outcome of the
2015 UK General Election represented a
dramatic break with the past (see gure
1). For the rst time in over 90 years the
Liberal Democrats were displaced as the
third biggest party, both in terms of votes
and of seats. Labour’s 50-year domination of
Scotland’s representation at Westminster was
shattered. Meanwhile, nearly 23 per cent of the
vote in Great Britain was cast for parties other
than Conservative, Labour and the Liberal
Democrats, easily smashing the previous all-
time high of just under 10 per cent recorded
ve years earlier.
Yet none of this came as much of a surprise.
All these developments had been presaged by
the polls. What did come as a shock was the
one feature of the result that might be thought
to have represented a return to normality. In
2010, no one party had managed to win an
overall majority, and Britain found itself being
governed by its rst peacetime coalition since
1945. This time, however, the Conservatives
managed to secure an overall majority and
the country returned to its familiar pattern of
single party majority rule. But because poll
after poll had suggested the race between the
two largest parties was neck and neck and the
country heading for another ‘hung’ parliament,
it was this restoration of normal service that
left the country wondering just how such a
development had occurred. (Figure 1.)
So we are left with two key questions
to address. The rst is why voters voted
in unprecedented numbers for what had
hitherto been relatively small parties, while
abandoning the Liberal Democrats? Second,
how did the Conservatives manage to emerge
suciently far ahead of Labour that they were
able to secure an overall majority?
The End of ‘British’ Politics?
While Conservatives and Labour fought it out
in England and Wales, the results in Northern
Ireland and Scotland were very dierent. We
have long been used to the fact that electoral
politics in Northern Ireland runs on entirely
separate tramlines from the rest of the UK. As
gure 2 shows, this pattern continued. In 2010
the Conservatives had nominated candidates
jointly with the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP),
General Election 2015:
Business as Usual or
New Departure?
May’s General Election brought an unexpected Conservative victory alongside significant gains for formerly
fringe parties. John Curtice analyses the results and finds the old certainties of British politics fast disappearing.
Image: © Press Association.
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