United Kingdom general election, 1931

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Ramsay MacDonald

Stanley Baldwin

Arthur Henderson

The UK general election on Tuesday 27 October 1931 was the last in the United Kingdom not held on a Thursday. It was the last election, and the only one under universal suffrage, where one party received a majority of votes cast. Like earlier elections where this happened, opposition parties were split into factions.

The election was held in the middle of the Great Depression. Ramsay MacDonald's Labour government had reached deadlock over a response to the crisis. In August 1931 MacDonald quit the government to form the multi-party National Government. The decision of MacDonald to form a coalition with the Conservatives had led Labour to expel him from the party. He was replaced as leader by Arthur Henderson. MacDonald and a small group of supporters reformed as the National Labour Party.

The Liberals also split. Those who supported the government's protectionist policies ran as National Liberals under Sir John Simon. Those who stuck to free trade but supported the Conservatives against Labour ran under Sir Herbert Samuel. There was also a small number of Liberals who opposed the government and ran as Independent Liberals under David Lloyd George.

Most seats were contested between Labour and either the Conservatives, one of the two main Liberal factions or National Labour. This co-operation between Conservatives and Liberals ended the three-way contests that had characterised elections in many seats since 1906. It also encouraged the line that this was a broad coalition government set-up in the national interest. Due to this, and the previous Labour government's failure to tackle the economic crisis, the Labour vote fell sharply, and the Conservatives, led by Stanley Baldwin, won a huge majority, although the prime minister of the resulting National Government was still Ramsay MacDonald.

The Liberals lacked the funds to contest their usual number of seats, but won almost as many as Labour, who nonetheless polled 30.8% of the votes cast.

[edit] Results

UK General Election 1931
Party		Seats	Gains	Losses	Net Gain/Loss	Seats %	Votes %	Votes	+/-
	Conservative	470			+ 210	76.4	55.0	11,377,022
	Labour	52			- 225	8.5	30.8	6,339,306
	Liberal	32			- 27	5.2	6.5	1,346,571
	National Liberal	35	35	0	+ 35	5.7	3.7	761,705
	National Labour	13	13	0	+ 13	2.1	1.5	316,741
	Independent Liberal	4	4	0	+ 4	0.7	0.5	103,528
	National Govt supporter	4	4	0	+ 4	0.7	0.5	100,193
	Irish Nationalist	2	0	1	- 1	0.3	0.4	72,530
	Communist	0	0	0	0	0	0.3	69,692
	New Party	0	0	0	0	0	0.2	36,377
	National Independent	2	2	0	+ 2	0.3	0.2	33,468
	National (Scotland)	0	0	0	0	0	0.1	20,954
	Independent Labour	0	0	0	0	0	0.1	18,200
	Scottish Prohibition	0	0	1	- 1	0	0.1	16,114
	Independent	1	0	3	- 3	0	0.0	10,789
	Liverpool Protestant	0	0	0	0	0	0.0	7,834
	Agricultural Party	0	0	0	0	0	0.0	6,993
	Independent Nationalist	0	0	0	0	0	0.0	3,134
	Independent Liberal	0	0	0	0	0	0.0	2,578
	Plaid Cymru	0	0	0	0	0	0.0	2,050
	Commonwealth Land	0	0	0	0	0	0.0	1,347

[edit] See also

MPs elected in the UK general election, 1931

[edit] External links

United Kingdom General Elections v • d • e
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