2017 United Kingdom General Election

The United Kingdom held a snap parliamentary election on June 8, 2017. All 650 seats in the House of Commons were up for election, and a party needed to win at least 326 seats to form a majority government.

This was the first election since the U.K. voted to leave the European Union in June 2016. The incumbent Conservative Party held a bare majority after the 2015 elections. Prime Minister Theresa May, who succeeded David Cameron after his post-Brexit resignation, called the election in the hope of securing a larger mandate to negotiate the terms of the country's departure from the E.U.

May's gamble backfired—the Conservative Party lost a little more than a dozen seats, falling nine seats short of a parliamentary majority. The Labour Party increased its presence by 30 seats, with smaller parties like the Liberal Democrats and Sinn Fein also posting modest gains.