United Kingdom general election, 1997

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Politics of the United Kingdom

The UK general election, 1997 was held on 1 May 1997. The election brought the first change in UK Government for 18 years. The Labour Party led by Tony Blair defeated the incumbent Conservative Party, causing a major change to the political landscape of the United Kingdom.

Overall Picture

The election has been described as a bloodbath for the ruling Conservative Party. They lost all seats outside England, and several prominent members of the party were not re-elected, including:


Labour won their largest parliamentary majority (179) to date, and the Liberal Democrats more than doubled their number of seats.

The Referendum Party came fourth with about 800,000 votes on a platform of seeking a referendum on the relationship with the European Union and may have taken some votes from the Conservatives; the next six parties only stood in one of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.

An independent, Martin Bell, won the Tatton seat, where incumbent MP Neil Hamilton was facing charges of having taken cash for questions, but was determined to stand nonetheless. The Labour and Liberal Democrat candidates withdrew in order for Bell to contest the seat.

The result declared for the constituency of Winchester showed a margin of victory of just 2 votes for the Liberal Democrats. The defeated Conservative candidate challenged the result on the grounds that errors by election officials (failures to stamp certain votes) had changed the result, forcing a by-election on 20 November which was won by the Liberal Democrats with a much larger majority, causing much recrimination in the Conservative Party about the choice to challenge the original result.

Results

The election was fought under new boundaries, with an additional 8 seats across the UK. Changes listed here are from the notional 1992 result had it been fought on those boundaries. These notional results were used by all media organisations at the time.

UK General Election 2001
Party Seats Gains Losses Net Gain/Loss Seats % Votes % Votes +/-
  Labour 418 145 0 +145 43.2 13,518,167
  Conservative 165 0 178 - 178 31.7 9,600,943
  Liberal Democrats 46 28 0 +28 16.8 5,242,947
  Referendum Party 0 0 0 0 2.6 811,849
  SNP 6 3 0 0 2.0 621,550
  UUP 10 1 0 +1 0.8 258,349
  SDLP 3 0 1 -1 0.6 190,814
  Plaid Cymru 4 0 0 0 0.5 161,030
  Sinn Féin 2 2 0 + 2 0.4 126,921
  DUP 2 0 2 - 2 0.3 107,348
  UKIP 0 0 0 0 0.3 105,722
  Green 0 0 0 0 0.3 63,991
  Alliance (NI) 0 0 0 0 0.2 62,972
  Socialist Labour Party 0 0 0 0 0.2 52,109
  Liberal 0 0 0 0 0 0.1 45,166
  Independent 1 1 0 +1 0.1 41,367
  BNP 0 0 0 0 0 0.1 35,832
  Natural Law 0 0 0 0 0 0.1 30,604
  Speaker 1 0 0 0 0.1 23,969
  ProLife Alliance 0 0 0 0 0.1 19,332
  UK Unionist 1 1 0 +1 0.0 12,817
  Progressive Unionist 0 0 0 0 0.0 10,928
  National Democrat 0 0 0 0 0.0 10,829
  Socialist Alternative 0 0 0 0 0.0 9,906
  Scottish Socialist 0 0 0 0 0.0 9,740
  Independent Labour 0 0 0 0 0.0 9,233
  Independent Conservative 0 0 0 0 0.0 8,608
  Monster Raving Loony 0 0 0 0 0.0 7,906
  Rainbow 0 0 0 0 0.0 3,745
  NI Women's Coalition 0 0 0 0 0.0 3,024
  Workers Party 0 0 0 0 0.0 2,766
  National Front (UK) 0 0 0 0 0.0 2,716
  Legalise Cannabis 0 0 0 0 0.0 2,085
  People's Labour 0 0 0 0 0.0 1,995
  Mebyon Kernow 0 0 0 0 0.0 1,906
  Conservative Anti-Euro 0 0 0 0 0.0 1,434
  SPGB 0 0 0 0 0.0 1,359
  Independent Democracy Means Consulting the People 0 0 0 0 0.0 1,301
  Community Representative 0 0 0 0 0.0 1,290
  Independent Conservative Referendum Party 0 0 0 0 0.0 1,276
  Residents Association 0 0 0 0 0.0 1,263
  Social Democrat 0 0 0 0 0.0 1,246
  Anti-Sleaze Labour 0 0 0 0 0.0 1,184
  WRP 0 0 0 0 0.0 1,178
  Real Labour 0 0 0 0 0.0 1,117

Total votes cast: 31,286,284. All parties with more than 1,000 votes shown. Labour total includes New Labour and "Labour Time for Change" candidates; Conservative total includes candidates in Northern Ireland (excluded in some lists) and "Loyal Conservative" candidate.

The Popular Unionist MP elected in 1992 died in 1995 and the party folded shortly afterwards.

See also MPs elected in the UK general election, 1997.

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See also: United Kingdom general election, 1997