2005 United Kingdom general election

2005 United Kingdom general election

5 May 2005
All 646 seats to the House of Commons 324 seats needed for a majority
Opinion polls
Turnout	61.4% (2.0%)
First party Second party Third party   Leader Tony Blair Michael Howard Charles Kennedy Party Labour Conservative Liberal Democrats Leader's seat Sedgefield Folkestone & Hythe Ross, Skye & Lochaber Last election 413 seats, 40.7% 166 seats, 31.7% 52 seats, 18.3% Seats before 403 165 51 Seats won 355‡ 198 62 Seat change 48* 33* 10* Popular vote 9,552,436 8,784,915 5,985,454 Percentage 35.2% 32.4% 22.0% Swing 5.5 pp 0.7 pp 3.7 pp
Colours show the winning party, as shown in the main table of results. * Indicates boundary change – so this is a nominal figure ‡ Figure does not include the Speaker, Michael Martin
Composition of the House of Commons after the election
Prime Minister before election Tony Blair Labour Prime Minister after election Tony Blair Labour

The 2005 United Kingdom general election was an election held on May 5, 2005 to elect 646 members to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. The three main candidates to become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom are shown to the right.

The election resulted in the Labour Party and it's leader Tony Blair winning a majority in the House of Commons for the third time in a row. The Labour Party did lose 47 of their seats in parliament and the amount of votes they got dropped by 5.5% from the 2001 General Election. Many people believe the Labour Party lost support because of Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair's unpopular decision to send troops to Iraq in 2003.

Results

• Labour Party (355 MP's, 35.2% of vote)
• Conservative Party (198 MP's, 32.4% of vote)
• Liberal Democrats (62 MP's, 22.0% of vote)
• UK Independence Party (0 MP's, 2.2% of vote)
• Scottish National Party (6 MP's, 1.5% of vote) - Scotland only
• Green Party (0 MP's, 1.0% of vote) - England and Wales only
• Democratic Unionist Party (9 MP's, 0.9% of vote) - Northern Ireland only
• British National Party (0 MP's, 0.7% of vote)
• Plaid Cymru (3 MP's, 0.6% of vote) - Wales only
• Sinn Féin (5 MP's, 0.6% of vote) - Northern Ireland only
• Ulster Unionist Party (1 MP, 0.5% of vote) - Northern Ireland only
• Social Democratic and Labour Party (3 MP's, 0.5% of vote) - Northern Ireland only
• Respect Party (1 MP, 0.3% of vote)
• Scottish Socialist Party (0 MP's, 0.2% of vote) - Scotland only
• Veritas (0 MP's, 0.1% of vote)
• Alliance Party of Northern Ireland (0 MP's, 0.1% of vote) - Northern Ireland only
• Scottish Green Party (0 MP's, 0.1% of vote) - Scotland only
• Socialist Labour Party (0 MP's, 0.1% of vote)
• Liberal Party (0 MP's, 0.1% of vote)
• English Democrats (0 MP's, 0.1% of vote) - England only

The constituencies of Blaenau Gwent and Wyre Forest elected Independent candidates. The seat of Glasgow East was won by the Speaker of the House of Commons Michael Martin, who is not considered to be of any political party.

The next election was held on May 6, 2010. See United Kingdom general election, 2010

Related pages

• MPs elected in the UK general election, 2005