United Kingdom general election, 1931

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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

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