What is a general election?

Wed 24 May 2017

This article was originally posted by GB Mag, an online magazine for international students helping and inspiring you to make the most of your time in the UK.

If you get a knock on the front door in the next few weeks it might not be a package from Amazon. It might be because someone wants to tell you why you should vote for a certain political party in the forthcoming general election on 8 June 2017.

So, what is a general election and why is this one getting the British media so excited? Basically, it’s a nationwide poll that decides which political party gets to govern the UK. Voters in each of the nation’s 650 constituencies cast a vote for the person they want to represent them as a Member of Parliament (MP).

This election is a bit special because the UK wasn’t supposed to have a general election until 7 May 2020 but the current Prime Minister, Theresa May, called an early election because she wants the support of a clear majority of voters as she negotiates the UK’s tricky exit from the European Union.

This general election is a showdown between the current Prime Minister, who is leader of the right wing Conservative Party lead and Labour, a left wing party, lead by Jeremy Corbyn.

If the opinion polls are right the Tories (the colloquial name for the British Conservative Party) are set for a big victory. Then again, the people who compile the opinion polls got things very wrong when they tried to predict the outcome of the EU referendum, so we might be in for a surprise.

In the UK we have a first-past-the-post (FPTP) system to decide who gets to be an MP. When Brits go to vote they put a cross next to the name of the man or woman they want to be their MP. After that all the votes are counted up (or tallied to use a word you’ll hear a lot on 8 June) and the candidate with the most votes is declared the winner.

The political party that gets the most MPs elected is entitled to form the Government and the leader of that party gets to be Prime Minister. If no party gets a majority you end up with what’s known as a ‘hung parliament’. In which case you either get a coalition government (one made up of two or more parties) or a minority government (one without a majority).

As an international student you’re unlikely to have the right to vote in the general election, unless you come from a commonwealth country. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have a bit of fun. Some Brits hold election parties and stay up late as the votes are counted and the results begin to filter in. Try to score an invitation to one. An early indication of how many votes each party has are released at 10pm and the results are updated throughout the night. In most cases the votes have been counted and the winning party is announced by the following morning.

http://greatbritishmag.co.uk/lifestyle/what-is-a-general-election