A by-election was held for the United Kingdom House of Commons for one Member of Parliament (MP) in the constituency of Bradford North, in West Yorkshire, England, on 9 November 1990. This was due to the death of former MP Pat Wall.
Bradford is a city based on heavy engineering and textile industries. The Bradford North seat had briefly been held by the Conservatives from 1983 to 1987, when the Labour candidate Pat Wall (a member of the Militant Tendency) saw his vote split by a strong SDP challenge and by the sitting Labour MP Ben Ford standing as an Independent. (The successful Conservative, Geoffrey Lawler, had only 34.6% of the vote)
The byelection took place when Margaret Thatcher was highly unpopular and in her last month as Prime Minister. Declining support for the Tory government (which improved after John Major succeeded Thatcher near the end of November 1990) was reflected by the fact that the Conservative candidate in this by-election only attracted just over one in six of the total votes just over three years after it had held the seat.
The successful Labour candidate Terry Rooney became the first Mormon to be elected to the House of Commons.
| Bradford North by-election 1990 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
| Labour | Terry Rooney | 18,619 | 51.7 | +8.8 | |
| Liberal Democrat | David Ward | 9,105 | 25.3 | +7.6 | |
| Conservative | Joy Atkin | 6,048 | 16.8 | -22.7 | |
| Islamic Party | David Pidcock | 800 | 2.2 | ||
| Green | Michael Knott | 447 | 1.2 | ||
| National Front | Robert Tenney | 305 | 0.8 | ||
| Independent | Joseph Floyd | 219 | 0.6 | ||
| Monster Raving Loony | Wild Willi Beckett | 210 | 0.6 | ||
| Liberal | Noel Nowosielski | 187 | 0.5 | ||
| Independent Conservative | Malcolm Wigglesworth | 89 | 0.2 | ||
| Majority | 9,514 | 26.4 | |||
| Turnout | 36,029 | 53.4 | -19.3 | ||
| Labour hold | Swing | ||||
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