General Election 2019: What to Expect When the U.K. Votes

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The U.K. votes on Thursday to determine whether Prime Minister Boris Johnson gets the mandate he wants to “get Brexit done,” or Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn replaces him in 10 Downing Street to pursue his “radical agenda” of wealth redistribution and nationalizations.

British general elections are decided by separate races in 650 districts, with each assigned a seat in the House of Commons. Most won’t change hands: just 70 did in 2017, with 111 doing so two years earlier.

But it’s the ones that do that determine who governs.

The key to interpreting the results is the concept of swing -- the shift in votes from one party to another compared with the previous election.

A party needs 326 out of 650 seats for a majority in the House of Commons, though in practice, about 320 will suffice because the speaker and three deputies don’t vote, and Northern Ireland’s Sinn Fein chooses not to sit in the Westminster parliament.

Johnson’s predecessor, Theresa May, won 317 seats two years ago. In theory, it means that with a uniform 0.54% swing among voters to the Conservatives from Labour, the Tories could take the nine seats it needs from Jeremy Corbyn’s party to secure a majority. A swing of just over 3% would see Johnson’s party take about 30 seats off the opposition, delivering a majority of around 40.

But in reality, it’s a much more complicated calculation because voter swings are not consistent nationwide due to the presence of smaller parties, tactical voting and the blurring of support due to Brexit. Johnson will probably need to win seats in the north and midlands to offset potential losses in pro-European districts in southern England and Scotland, where growing support for independence is also bolstering the Scottish National Party.

The polls have consistently pointed to a Tory win, though the margin has narrowed and according to YouGov, everything from a Tory landslide to a hung Parliament -- where no party holds a majority -- remains within the margin of error. A small change in voter mood could swing the election in either direction.

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