1997 United Kingdom general election

The UK general election, 1997 was an election held on 1 May 1997 to elect 659 members to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. The three main candidates to become Prime Minister are shown to the right: 

The Labour Party and its leader Tony Blair gained the majority of seats and created the first Labour government since 1979. The Labour Party won 418 seats which was the highest majority of seats for any party since the Conservatives in the 1931 General Election. The Conservative Party suffered it's lowest number of seats since 1906 and lost all of its seats in Scotland and Wales. Several prominent Conservative politicians lost their seats such as Defence Secretary Michael Portillo, Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind, Scottish Secretary Michael Forsyth as well as Edwina Currie, David Mellor and Ian Lang. 

The Liberal Democrats won 46 seats, which was the highest number of seats for a third party since 1929. The Referendum Party ran on the single issue of taking Britain out of the European Union and won 2.6% of the vote but no seats.

The final results of the election were:

 Labour Party (418 MP's, 43.2% of vote)
 Conservative Party (165 MP's, 30.7% of vote)
 Liberal Democrats (46 MP's, 16.8% of vote)
 Referendum Party (0 MP's, 2.6% of vote)
 Scottish National Party (6 MP's, 2.0% of vote) - Scotland only
 Ulster Unionist Party (10 MP's, 0.8% of vote) - Northern Ireland only
 Social Democratic and Labour Party (3 MP's, 0.6% of vote) - Northern Ireland only
 Plaid Cymru (4 MP's, 0.5% of vote) - Wales only
 Sinn Fein (2 MP's, 0.4% of vote) - Northern Ireland only
 Democratic Unionist Party (2 MP's, 0.3% of vote) - Northern Ireland only
 UK Independence Party (0 MP's, 0.3% of vote)
 Green Party (0 MP's, 0.3% of vote)
 Alliance Party of Northern Ireland (0 MP's, 0.2% of vote) - Northern Ireland only
 Socialist Labour Party (0 MP's, 0.2% of vote)
 Liberal Party (0 MP's, 0.1% of vote)
 British National Party (0 MP's, 0.1% of vote)

Notes

References

Category:1997 in the United Kingdom
Category:1997 elections
Category:United Kingdom general elections