2024 U.K. election is set to overhaul British politics. Here’s what to know.

London – British voters go to the polls on Thursday to vote in the country's first general election since 2019. Here's what you need to know.

Who is standing in the UK election?

British voters will not directly elect a new leader on Thursday. Under the UK's parliamentary system, voters elect their local representatives to the lower house of Parliament, the House of Commons.

On Thursday, there are 650 parliamentary seats up for grabs, each of which will be filled by an MP in the House of Commons. For a single party to win an absolute majority in the Commons, it would need to win at least 326 seats, more than half of those available. Whichever party does this gets to form the next government, with its leader becoming the prime minister. [Yes, King Charles III is Britain’s formal head of state. You can read here about what limited power that actually conveys.]

Parliament was formally dissolved on May 30 when current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called the election, as is the procedure, but before that Sunak's long-ruling Conservative Party had a absolute majority of 345 seats, which gave it significant power to set the political agenda.

The UK has what is called a first-past-the-post system, which means that voters receive a ballot paper with a list of candidates from different parties and select just one of their choice. The candidate in each constituency with the most votes wins the seat, with no specific threshold required. So, for example, if there are six candidates in a given race, they will all be from different parties, and even if the candidate with the most votes only wins 25% of the total, they still win the seat.

If a voter thinks their favorite candidate has little chance of winning, they can choose to vote tactically and put their X next to another candidate's name (effectively a second choice) if they think that candidate has a better chance of winning . This tactic is generally seen as a way for a voter to help block a candidate who is viewed as highly unfavorable, but has a reasonable chance of winning, for the seat in a race.

In practice, this system means that a political party could win a good share of the national vote but not a proportional share of the seats. The UK's smaller political parties have long argued that the first-past-the-post electoral system has thus helped consolidate the power of the UK's two largest parties: the current right-leaning Conservative Party, often called the Tories, and its main rivals. , the most left-wing Labor Party.

What is the UK election calendar?

Voting begins in the UK general election on Thursday morning, with most constituency results expected in the early hours of Friday morning, although this may take longer in some more rural parts of the country, particularly if the vote count is close or subject to a count.

There is usually an early indicator of the overall results of a UK general election as UK broadcasters Sky News, ITV and CBS News' partner network BBC News release a joint exit poll immediately after the close of the ballot boxes

The poll generally provides an accurate representation of the final results and can be expected around 10:00 p.m. local time on Thursday (5:00 p.m. Eastern).

UK election poll predictions and data

Polls and political analysts have predicted for many weeks that Labor would win an overwhelming majority in Parliament. If the latest polls prove true, Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's 18-month tenure will come to an end and Britons will wake up on Friday morning with a new party at the helm of the country for the first time in 14 years.

These 14 years of conservative government have been marked by politician i economic turmoilwith a rotating cast of five Tory prime ministers occupying Number 10 Downing Street in the past eight years alone.

The latest poll by leading independent data analytics group YouGov shows Labor in the lead by a 17-point margin, with 37% of respondents saying they intend to vote Labor compared to 20% of the public who He says he will vote for it. the conservatives

Labor candidates are expected to win up to 425 seats in the House of Commons, which would represent a massive increase of 223 seats for the party. The Conservatives are expected to hold just 108 seats, which would mean a seismic loss of 257 seats.

Who is Keir Starmer, the likely Prime Minister?

Keir Starmer was elected by party members to lead Labor in 2020, just after the party suffered its worst general election defeat in 85 years. He immediately declared his mission to make the party “eligible” again.

Four years on, Starmer, 61, is poised to take the UK's top job.

He has faced frequent criticism for a perceived lack of charisma, but his efforts to drag Labor back to the center of British politics to give it wider voter appeal appear to have paid off.

Throughout his leadership of the party, Starmer has methodically frozen out elements of Labour's socialist-leaning ultra-left wing, which ran the party under previous leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Starmer's deliberate shift from socialism to centrism has been criticized by pundits and left-leaning voters, and Labor may lose some votes to smaller parties such as the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party, but given polls, it seems to have been a winning strategy overall.

Is Britain bucking Europe's rightward shift?

A change to a centre-left Labor government in Britain would buck the trend in Europe, as far-right parties have been on the rise across the continent in recent years.

In the first round of voting in France's parliamentary elections on Sunday, Marine Le Pen's far-right, anti-immigration party moved within striking distance of becoming France's largest political party. The party got a third of the votes in a first round that had a historically high turnout.

If voters maintain this trend in the decisive second round of voting on July 7, that will mark an unprecedented shift to the right for the french

Last month's European Parliament elections It also saw a record number of far-right lawmakers win seats, with right-wing candidates in Europe's three biggest economies – Italy, France and Germany – making gains by campaigning in opposition to issues such as immigrationsupport for Ukraine and green environmental policies.

While a Labor victory would be a move against these political winds on the continent, the UK has also seen a surge in support for far-right candidates this election cycle.

Nigel Farage may be known to Americans as ally of former President Donald Trump. His anti-immigrant rhetoric became very influential in the movement he brought to Britain. “Brexit” of the European Union.

After decades of staying on the far right of British politics, failing to win a seat in Parliament despite eight previous attempts, Farage looks set to finally claim the seat in his local constituency of Clacton in the south this year -east of England

Farage's far-right Reform Party It is only expected to win a total of around five seats in Parliament, including Farage's, but YouGov projects overall support for reform nationally at around 15% of the electorate, and from its current position with zero seats in the House of Commons, the party appears to be heading for a significant surge in popularity.

Political analysts say Reform's anti-immigrant messaging is eating into the Conservative Party's vote share.

So while Farage won't be taking power any time soon, he seems poised to return to the limelight of British politics, and with a significant share of public support, he may find himself wielding an outsized influence on British politics. The Conservative Party is trying to rebuild itself after what could be a devastating election.

CBS News' Frank Andrews contributed to this report.