The United Kingdom general election of 2015 was held on 7 May 2015 to elect the 56th Parliament of the United Kingdom. Voting took place in all 650 parliamentary constituencies of the United Kingdom, each electing one Member of Parliament to seats in the House of Commons, the lower house of Parliament. In addition to the general election, local elections took place in most of England, with the exception of Greater London.
The election campaign was dominated by speculation that the result would be too close to call and result in another hung parliament, with the election being dubbed the most unpredictable in decades. The opinion polls were eventually proven to have drastically underestimated the Conservative vote, which bore similarity to their surprise victory in 1992. The incumbent Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, having governed since 2010 in a coalition with the Liberal Democrats, was elected for a second term with 36.9% of the vote and 331 seats, this time with a parliamentary majority of 15 (with Sinn Féin's 4 MPs abstaining). Forming the first Conservative majority government since 1992, Cameron became the first Prime Minister since 1900 to be re-elected for a second term with an increased popular vote share and the only Prime Minister other than Margaret Thatcher to be re-elected with a greater number of seats after serving a full term. The Labour Party, led by Ed Miliband, won 30.4% and 232 seats, faring below expectations and suffering their worst defeat since 1987.
The Scottish National Party (SNP), seeing a surge of support since the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, became the third largest party in the Commons by winning an unprecedented 56 out of the 59 seats in Scotland, mostly at the expense of Labour. The Liberal Democrats, led by outgoing Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, lost 49 of their 57 seats and their share of the vote dropped to their lowest level since the election of 1970. They finished with a total of 8 MPs, tied with the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland for the fourth largest party in the Commons. Describing their result as a 'Green Surge', the Green Party took their highest ever share of the vote and held their only seat of Brighton Pavilion with a larger majority. The campaign was marked by an increased profile for the UK Independence Party (UKIP), who finished with the third highest vote share (12.9%) but only won a single seat, with party leader Nigel Farage unable to win the constituency of Thanet South. The results led to Miliband, Clegg and Farage all resigning as party leaders following the election.
Several prominent MPs lost their seats in the election, including Labour shadow cabinet ministers Ed Balls, Douglas Alexander and Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy. Former Liberal Democrat cabinet ministers Vince Cable, Danny Alexander, Simon Hughes and Ed Davey all lost their seats although Nick Clegg was re-elected in Sheffield Hallam with a reduced majority. Employment Minister Esther McVey was the most senior Conservative to lose her seat, while the defeat of UKIP MP Mark Reckless halved his party's parliamentary representation. The election results are expected to spark a debate on electoral reform, especially from UKIP who were the third party in the popular vote but received just a single seat in the Commons. The British Polling Council launched an inquiry into the substantial variance between the opinion polls and the actual result.
