The 2024 UK election is set to overhaul British politics. Here’s what you need to know.

London – British voters will go to the polls on Thursday to vote in the country’s first general election since 2019. Here’s what you need to know.

Who is going to vote in England?

British voters will not directly elect a new leader on Thursday. In the British parliamentary system, voters elect local representatives to the lower house of Parliament, the House of Commons.

On Thursday, there are 650 parliamentary seats up for grabs, each of which will be occupied by one Member of Parliament (MP) in the House of Commons. For a single party to win an outright majority in the Commons, it must win at least 326 seats – over half of those available. Whichever party does this will form the next government, the leader of which will be the prime minister. (Yes, King Charles III is the official head of state of England. You can read here about it what limited power it actually conveys.)

Parliament was officially dissolved on May 30 when current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called an election, as per procedure, but before that, Sunak’s long-time Conservative Party held a majority of 345 seats, giving it significant power to set the policy agenda.

Britain has what is called a first-past-the-post system, which means that voters receive a ballot paper with a list of candidates from various parties and choose only one of their options. The candidate from each constituency with the most votes wins the seat – with no specific threshold required. So, if, for example, there are six candidates in a certain race, they will all be different parties, and even if the candidate with the most wins only 25% of the total, he still wins the seat.

If the voters believe that their favorite candidate has a low chance of winning, they can choose to choose a tactic and put an X next to the name of another candidate – effectively a second choice – if they feel that the candidate has a better chance of winning. This tactic is generally seen as a way for voters to block candidates who they consider to be poor, but have a reasonable chance of winning, from getting seats in the race.

In practice, this system means that political parties can win a healthy number of votes at the national level but do not get a proportional share of seats. Britain’s smaller political parties have long argued that the first-past-the-post system has helped consolidate the power of Britain’s two biggest parties – the right-leaning Conservative Party, often referred to as the Tories, and its main rival. , the more left-wing Labor Party.

What is the UK election timeline?

Voting began in England’s general election on Thursday morning, and most constituency results are expected early Friday morning, although this may take longer in some rural areas of the country – especially if the vote tally is close or subject to a recount.

There are usually early indications of the overall results of the British general election as exit polls are jointly released by the British broadcaster Sky News, ITV and CBS News’ partner network BBC News immediately after the polls close.

Exit polls generally provide an accurate representation of the final results and can be expected around 10pm on Thursday local time (5pm Eastern).

UK election predictions and polling data

Polls and political analysts had been predicting for weeks that Labor would win a landslide majority in Parliament. If the latest polling data proves accurate, Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s 18-month tenure will come to an end and Britons will wake up Friday morning to a new party in charge of the country for the first time in 14 years.

That 14 years of Conservative rule has been marked by politics and economic turmoilwith a rotation of five Conservative prime ministers occupying 10 Downing Street in the last eight years alone.

The latest poll by leading independent data analysis group YouGov shows Labor in the lead by a margin of 17, with 37% of those polled saying they would vote Labor against 20% of the public saying they would. the Conservatives.

Labor candidates are expected to win up to 425 seats in the House of Commons, which would give the party 223 seats. The Conservatives are projected to hold only 108 seats, which would be a loss of 257 seats.

Who is Keir Starmer, the likely next prime minister?

Keir Starmer was elected by party members to lead Labor in 2020, after the party suffered its worst general election defeat in 85 years. He immediately stated his mission to make the party “electable” again.

Four years later Starmer, 61, is poised to take Britain’s top job.

He has often faced criticism for his lack of charisma, but his efforts have dragged Labor back to the center of British politics to appeal to a wider range of voters.

During his leadership of the party, Starmer methodically froze elements of the left wing and socialist Labor, which ran the party under the previous leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Starmer’s deliberate shift from socialism to centrism has been criticized by pundits and voters on the left, and Labor may have lost some votes to smaller parties such as the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party, but, according to polls, it seems the strategy is winning overall.

Is Britain bucking the trend of Europe’s shift to the right?

A shift to a center-left Labor government in Britain will buck the trend in Europe, as far-right parties have been on the rise across the continent in recent years.

In the first round of voting in France’s parliamentary elections on Sunday, Marine Le Pen’s far-right anti-immigration National Rally Party moved within reach of becoming France’s largest political party. Feast take a third of the votes in the first round that attracted attention in high history.

If voters maintain that trend in the second round of elections that will be held on July 7, that is will mark an unprecedented shift to the right for the French.

Last month European parliamentary elections also saw a record number of far-right legislators win seats, with right-wing candidates in Europe’s three main economies – Italy, France and Germany – making gains by campaigning against issues including immigrationsupport for Ukraine and green environmental policy.

While a Labor victory would be a move against the continent’s political headwinds, Britain has also seen a surge in support for far-right candidates this election cycle.

Nigel Farage may be familiar to America as ally of former President Donald Trump. His anti-immigrant rhetoric was a major influence on the movement that led to Britain. “Brexit” from the European Union.

After decades of swimming in the far-right corner of British politics, unable to win a seat in Parliament despite eight previous attempts, Farage looks set this year to finally claim a seat for the local constituency of Clacton, in the south-east of England.

Farage’s far-right Reform Party only projected to take a total of five seats in Parliament, including Farage himself, but YouGov projects the overall support for National Reform in about 15% of the electorate, and from its current position with zero seats in the House of Commons, it seems that this party is heading for a significant increase in popularity.

Political analysts say Reform’s anti-immigrant messaging has largely won the Conservative Party vote share.

So, while Farage will no longer be taking power, it seems likely that he will step back into the British political spotlight and, with considerable public support, he could have a major impact on British politics. The Conservative Party is trying to rebuild after a potentially devastating election.

CBS News’ Frank Andrews contributed to this report.