The Irish Parliamentary Party, led by John Redmond, achieved its seats with a relatively low number of votes, as 73 candidates stood unopposed.

This election was a landslide defeat for the Conservative Party and their Liberal Unionist allies, with the primary reason given by historians being the party's weakness after its split over the issue of free trade (Joseph Chamberlain had resigned from government in September 1903 in order to campaign for Tariff Reform, which would allow "preferential tariffs").

In this election the Conservatives were reduced to their lowest seat count in the party's history, a record not broken until 2024, 118 years later.

This culminated in Joseph Chamberlain's resignation from the government in May 1903 to campaign for tariff reform in order to protect British industry from foreign competition.

It also commissioned a variety of posters warning the electorate over rises in food prices under protectionist policies, including one which mentioned that "Balfour and Chamberlain are linked together against free trade ... Don't be deceived by Tory tricks".

The war had lasted over two and half years, much longer than had originally been expected, while details were revealed of the existence of concentration camps where over 20,000 men, women and children were reported to have died because of poor sanitation.

This was after the 1902 Rowntree study of poverty in York showed that almost one-third of the population lived below the 'poverty line', which helped to increase the calls for social reforms, something which had been neglected by the Conservative and Unionist government.

[7] Nonconformists were angered when Conservatives pushed through the Education Act 1902, which integrated voluntary schools into the state system and provided for their support from the local rate.

[14]The landslide Liberal victory led to many Conservative and Unionist MPs losing what had previously been regarded as safe seats.

The result has since been called one of the biggest upsets in British political history and remains a rare instance of a former Prime Minister or Leader of the Opposition losing their seat in a General election.

[15] In 1903, the Liberal Herbert Gladstone and Ramsay MacDonald of the Labour Representation Committee negotiated an informal agreement to ensure the anti-Conservative vote was not split between their two parties.