All of these factors led to a swing towards support for Sinn Féin – the party which was led by veterans of the Easter Rising and which stood for an independent Irish Republic. In the 1918 Irish general election, Sinn Féin won the vast majority of seats, many of which were uncontested. Sinn Féin's elected candidates refused to attend the UK Parliament at Westminster and instead assembled in Dublin as a new revolutionary parliament called "Dáil Éireann". They declared the existence of a new state called the "Irish Republic" and established a system of government to rival the institutions of the United Kingdom.