Question

how is an mp elected

Answer 1

How MPs are elected. The UK is divided into 650 areas called constituencies. During an election everyone eligible to cast a vote in a constituency selects one candidate to be their MP. The candidate who gets the most votes becomes the MP for that area until the next election.

Answer 2

political party’s total number of seats in Parliament is filled with a mix of Electorate MPs and List MPs.

The Electorate MPs are elected using the First Past the Post voting system (FPP). The candidate who gets the most votes wins. The winning candidate does not have to get more than half the votes.

The rest of a party’s MPs are elected from the party’s list. The number of List MPs each party receives is the difference between a party’s total allocation of seats in Parliament and its number of Electorate MPs.

For example, if a party gets 30% of the party vote it will get about 36 MPs in Parliament (being 30% of 120 seats). So if that party wins 20 electorate seats it will have 16 List MPs in addition to its 20 Electorate MPs.

If a party crosses the 5% party vote threshold but, at the same time, wins no electorate seats, it is still entitled to a share of all the seats in Parliament. For example, if a party wins 10% of the party votes and no electorate seats