British General Election October 1974

← Feb 1974General election
October 19741979 →

(Share of votes in%)

 %

40

30th

20th

10

0

39.3

35.8

18.5

2.9

0.9

2.7

Labor

Tories

Liberals ^c

SNP

UUP

Otherwise.

Gains and losses

compared to February 1974

 % p

   4th

   2

   0

  -2

  -4

+2.1

-2.1

-0.9

+0.9

+0.1

-0.1

Labor

Tories

Liberals ^c

SNP

UUP

Otherwise.

Remarks:

^c with Alliance

1

1

319

3

11

13

6th

277

3

1

1 1 319 3 11 13 6th 277 3 1 

A total of 635 seats

• Independent Republican : 1
• SDLP : 1
• Labor : 319
• Plaid : 3
• SNP : 11
• Liberals : 13
• UUP : 6
• Tories : 277
• Otherwise: 3
• DUP : 1

The early British general election in October 1974 took place on October 10, 1974. When choosing the deputies were for the lower house (House of Commons) redefined. The election was won by Harold Wilson's Labor Party with a very narrow majority of 3 seats. This was Labor's last victory in a general election until the 1997 election 23 years later.

prehistory

The election to the lower house in February of the same year unexpectedly failed to achieve a clear majority in parliament and led to a so-called hung parliament . As a result, coalition talks between Liberals on the one hand and the Conservatives or Labor on the other hand were initiated, but they did not lead to an agreement, according to which Labor leader Harold Wilson formed a Labor minority government under his leadership. Due to the lack of majorities, he announced in a televised address on September 18, 1974, new elections for October. One of the successes of the Wilson administration in its brief tenure was the settlement of the major miners' strike that had troubled the previous Heath administration. Wilson was also adept at keeping internal party tensions under Labor over entry into the European Economic Community , which had occurred in 1973. He promised to hold a referendum on membership, which was held under his government in 1975.

The Conservatives, led by Edward Heath, were affected when the Northern Irish Ulster Unionist Party refused to cooperate with the Conservatives in Westminster in protest of the 1973 Sunningdale Accords .

Electoral system

The simple majority voting system was used for voting . There was no threshold clause .

Election result

Nationwide election result by constituency

The Labor Party won the election . It got 39.3 percent of the vote and achieved a narrow absolute majority with 319 of 635 seats. The Conservative Party and the Liberal Party suffered slight losses. As a result of the defeat, the conservative party chairman Heath was replaced by Margaret Thatcher in February 1975 . The Scottish National Party (SNP) achieved its best result to date, with 11 of 71 Scottish constituencies and 30% of the Scottish electoral vote.

Political party		be right			Mandates
		number	%	+/-	number	+/-
	Labor Party	11,457,079	39.3	+2.1	319	+18
	Conservative party	10,462,565	35.8	−2.1	277	−20
	Liberal party	5,346,704	18.3	−1.0	13	−1
	Scottish National Party	839.617	2.9	+0.9	11	+4
	Ulster Unionist Party	256.065	0.9	+0.1	6th	−1
	Plaid Cymru	166,321	0.6	-	3	+1
	Social Democratic and Labor Party	154.193	0.5	-	1	-
	British National Front	113,843	0.4	+0.2	-	-
	Vanguard Progressive Unionist Party	92,262	0.3	+0.1	3	-
	Democratic Unionist Party	59,451	0.2	-	1	-
	Alliance Party of Northern Ireland	44,644	0.2	+0.1	-	-
	Independent Labor	33,317	0.1	-	-	-
	Independent Republican	32,795	0.1	-	1	-
	Others	130,248	0.4	-	-	-
	total	29.189.104	100.0		635
Eligible voters		40,072,970
voter turnout		72.8%
Source:

See also

• United Kingdom Political System

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} General Election Results 1885-1979 United Kingdom Election Results (English)