2017 United Kingdom general election in the context of "Interregnum"

Uxbridge and South Ruislip is a constituency in Greater London represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since its 2010 creation. The seat has been held by Danny Beales of the Labour Party since July 2024.

From 2015 to 2023, the seat was held by former Prime Minister (2019–2022) Boris Johnson, of the Conservative Party. Johnson won the seat in 2015 with a majority of 10,695. In 2017, as Foreign Secretary, he won a narrower majority of 5,034 votes. In 2019, as Prime Minister, he won an increased majority of 7,210. Johnson formally resigned in June 2023 after receiving a copy of the Standard Committee's report into Partygate, which recommended a recall petition. The subsequent by-election was won by Conservative candidate Steve Tuckwell, who then lost the seat to Danny Beales in the 2024 general election.

The Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 (c. 14) (FTPA) was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which, for the first time, set in legislation a default fixed election date for general elections in the United Kingdom. It remained in force until 2022, when it was repealed by the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022. Since then, as before its passage, elections are required by law to be held at least once every five years, but can be called earlier if the prime minister advises the monarch to exercise the royal prerogative to do so. Prime ministers have often employed this mechanism to call an election before the end of their five-year term, sometimes fairly early in it. Critics have said this gives an unfair advantage to the incumbent prime minister, allowing them to call a general election at a time that suits them electorally. While it was in force, the FTPA removed this longstanding power of the prime minister.

Under the FTPA, general elections were automatically scheduled for the first Thursday in May of the fifth year after the previous general election, or the fourth year if the date of the previous election was before the first Thursday in May. However, the FTPA also provided two ways to call an election earlier. One was a Commons vote of no confidence in the government, which still required only a simple majority of voters. The other was a vote explicitly in favour of an earlier election, which required a qualified majority of two-thirds of the total membership of the Commons. The first election under the FTPA was held on 7 May 2015. An early election was held in 2017, after Prime Minister Theresa May received approval to call it by a two-thirds majority.

The 2019 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 12 December 2019, with 47,074,800 registered voters entitled to vote to elect 650 Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons. The governing Conservative Party, led by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, won a landslide victory with a majority of 80 seats, a net gain of 48, on 43.6 per cent of the popular vote, the highest percentage for any party since the 1979 general election, though with a narrower popular vote margin than that achieved by the Labour Party over the Conservatives at the 1997 general election. This was the second national election to be held in 2019 in the United Kingdom, the first being the 2019 European Parliament election.

After it lost its parliamentary majority at the 2017 general election, the Conservative Party governed in minority with the support of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). The prime minister, Theresa May, resigned in July 2019 after repeatedly failing to pass her Brexit withdrawal agreement in parliament. Johnson succeeded her as the leader of the Conservative Party and as prime minister in July 2019. Johnson could not persuade Parliament to approve a revised withdrawal agreement by the end of October, and chose to call a snap election, which the House of Commons supported under the Early Parliamentary General Election Act 2019. Opinion polls showed a firm lead for the Conservatives against the opposition Labour Party throughout the campaign.

The second May ministry was formed on 11 June 2017 after Theresa May returned to office following the June 2017 snap general election. The election resulted in a hung parliament with the Conservative Party losing its governing majority in the House of Commons. On 9 June 2017, May announced her intention to form a Conservative minority government, reliant on the confidence and supply of the Democratic Unionist Party; a finalised agreement between the two parties was signed and published on 26 June 2017.

May announced on 24 May 2019 that she would resign as Leader of the Conservative Party on 7 June. She remained in office as caretaker prime minister during the resulting Conservative Party leadership election, before officially resigning on 24 July, after which she was succeeded as prime minister by former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson.

The 1992 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 9 April 1992, to elect 651 members to the House of Commons. The governing Conservative Party led by Prime Minister John Major won a fourth consecutive election victory, with a majority of 21. This would be the last time that the Conservatives would win an overall majority at a general election until 2015 and the last general election to be held on a day which did not coincide with any local elections until 2017. This election result took many by surprise, as opinion polling leading up to the election day had shown a narrow but consistent lead for the Labour Party under leader Neil Kinnock during a period of recession and declining living standards.

John Major had won the leadership election in November 1990 following the resignation of Margaret Thatcher. During his first term leading up to the 1992 election he oversaw the British involvement in the Gulf War, introduced legislation to replace the unpopular Community Charge with Council Tax, and signed the Maastricht Treaty. Britain was sliding into its second recession in a decade at the time of Major's appointment.

The Conservative–DUP agreement was a confidence and supply agreement between the Conservative Party and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) following the 2017 general election which resulted in a hung parliament. Negotiations between the two parties began on 9 June, the day after the election, and the final agreement was signed and published on 26 June 2017.

The agreement, signed by the two parties' chief whips, Gavin Williamson for the Conservatives and Jeffrey Donaldson for the DUP, secured DUP Confidence and supply support for a Conservative minority government led by Theresa May.

Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke Badenoch (née Adegoke; born 2 January 1980) is a British politician who has served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Conservative Party since November 2024. Badenoch previously worked in the Cabinet for prime ministers Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak from 2022 to 2024. She was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for North West Essex, previously Saffron Walden, in 2017.

In 2012, Badenoch unsuccessfully contested a seat in the London Assembly, but became a member of the London Assembly after Victoria Borwick was elected as an MP in 2015. A supporter of Brexit in the 2016 referendum, Badenoch was elected to the House of Commons at the 2017 general election.

Joanne Kate Swinson CBE FRSA (born 5 February 1980) is a Scottish former politician who was Leader of the Liberal Democrats from July to December 2019. Swinson was Member of Parliament (MP) for East Dunbartonshire from 2005 to 2015 and 2017 to 2019. In September 2020, Swinson became Director of Partners for a New Economy (P4NE).

Swinson studied at the London School of Economics, and briefly worked in public relations, before being elected to the House of Commons aged 25, becoming the youngest MP at the time. She was a Liberal Democrat Spokesperson covering various portfolios, including Scotland, Women and Equalities, Communities and Local Government, and Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs.