A General Election is widely expected to take place in the UK in 2024.
While it is possible that we could face early elections in 2023 or that the government could hold out for a Christmas campaign and a January 2025 election (and there are options for this in the market), this is seen as pretty unlikely.
Which month will it be?
Resolution criteria:
This market applies to the main voting day regardless of early voting or anything like that
This market will resolve to the next General Election, so there won't be a split resolution if there are two GEs in the year (like there were in 1974)
The market will resolve once parliament is dissolved. This is the point at which the general election date is set in stone. In the very unlikely event that the election is delayed (eg. because the King dies or there is some sort of terrorist attack), the market will not be re-resolved.
Related questions
@BonjTwo It's never exactly zero on manifold - we only get one decimal place. So yeah, the odds of the election already having happened are much less than 0.1%
There's more speculation about a May election today off the back of Lee Anderson's defection to Reform UK:
To have an election on 2nd May (the same day as the local elections), Parliament would have to dissolve by 26th March. It seems pretty unlikely that a May election would be on a different day in May or early June as it would be very strange to have local elections take place during a general election campaign...
Here are a few markets around the Reform news:
/SimonGrayson/will-any-more-mps-defect-to-reform-6af568feead7
/SimonGrayson/will-any-more-mps-defect-to-reform
Sunak would be 'absolutely nuts' to hold general election in May, says George Osborne
“If I was Sunak, I wouldn’t be ruling out an election in January 2025. You want to give yourself maximum room for manoeuvre.”
George Osborne wants to ruin us all!
Source: The Independent newspaper: "A Tory minister has appeared to rule out a May general election, suggesting voters will go to the polls this autumn. With Rishi Sunak’s party lagging Labour in the polls by 20 points, Greg Hands said the contest will be “later this year”. The trade minister was asked about mounting speculation the PM could call a snap election in May, to coincide with local elections around the country, but ruled the prospect out"
@SimonGrayson question about resolution: when do you intend to resolve this? Will it be on the day the election is announced? The day Parliament is dissolved? Or the day of polling?
@Noit I hadn't thought about it properly, but on reflection I'll resolve it on the day that the King dissolves Parliament.
That's the point at which the date for the general election is set in stone. I know that it can theoretically be delayed (eg. if the monarch dies or there's some sort of terrorist attack), but I don't think that's what people are betting on so it's not worth keeping people's Mana locked up for another month at that point.
I'll update the description to make this clear!
Handy little doc here that answers the question “when’s the last date an election can be called to be held on X date”. Assuming no wash-up period to get through odd bits of legislation, so this is the absolute minimum and true call dates are likely to be at least a week or two earlier.
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9921/
@Noit I have lost so much mana on this market, I swear to any deity that exists that if you can stop these complete buffoons shitting their political beds and let me feel confident in my stocks for a full 24 hours I will convert, whatever religion you are.
Whispers from a weasel, but I’m betting nonetheless. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/jan/11/general-election-likely-to-take-place-on-14-november-says-george-osborne
A few polling markets as we start gearing up for a general election year…
/SimonGrayson/when-will-the-conservative-party-ne
@stationtostation This is a linked market - I can’t resolve individual options, I can only resolve the whole market to one option at the end.