How does voter turnout compare with previous Westminster elections?

THE voter turnout across both the UK and Scotland has hit historic lows in the 2024 General Election - after a period of relative growth in voter turnout.

While the Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire constituency is yet to be declared, the current figures show that turnout in Scotland is set to be around 59%.

This is down a massive 9.1 percentage points from 2019, when turnout in Scotland was 68.1%. The UK turnout in 2019 was 67.3%.

According to BBC predictions, turnout at this General Election is set to be a similar 60% across the UK. This will be the second lowest turnout ever in a UK election since 1885, with only 2001 being lower at 59%, speaking to a large-scale feeling of political disenchantment across the country.

Looking at the 2017 election, the UK-wide turnout was 68.8% - its highest level since Tony Blair was elected as Labour prime minister in 1997.

Scotland, however, was the only region where turnout fell in 2017, dropping by 4.6 percentage points from 2015 to 66.4%.

The low turnout exacerbates claims that Keir Starmer's sweeping wins across the country do not represent a significant change in the country's political leanings.

While Labour have won 412 seats at Westminster, the party scooped up 34% of the popular vote, just a 1.6 percentage point increase from the party's share in 2019 and a six percentage point fall from the 40% won under Jeremy Corbyn in 2017.

The lower overall turnout means that despite increasing Labour's vote share, the party secured just 9,686,329 overall votes in 2024, compared with a total of 10,295,912 under Jeremy Corbyn in 2019 - a result deemed a catastrophic failure by many.