Why Nigel Farage’s Reform UK Could Get Millions of Votes But Few MPs
A volunteer opens a ballot box during counting for the London Mayoral election in 2016
Photographer: Chris RatcliffeThis article is for subscribers only.
Britain’s winner-takes-all election system favors the biggest parties — Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives and Keir Starmer’s Labour — at the expense of the minor ones. Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, for example, is projected to win 16% of the vote in a Bloomberg composite opinion poll, yet most pollsters expect the insurgent party to pick up no more than a handful of seats in the House of Commons.
Below is a short explainer on how the first-past-the-post voting system works, and how Britons are increasingly voting tactically to ensure their voices are heard on July 4.