1983_United_Kingdom_general_election_in

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1983 United Kingdom general election

← 1979

9 June 1983

1987 →

Turnout

72.7%,

4.14%

	First party	Second party	Third party

Leader	Michael Foot	Margaret Thatcher	David Steel ( Lib.) David Owen ( SDP)
Party	Labour	Conservative	Alliance
Leader since	10 November 1980	11 February 1975	7 July 1976 (Steel) 21 June 1983 (Owen)
Last election	44 seats, 41.5%	22 seats, 31.4%	3 seats, 9.0%
Seats won	41	21	8
Seat change	3	1	5
Popular vote	990,654	801,487	692,634
Percentage	35.1%	28.4%	24.5%
Swing	6.5%	3.0%	15.5%

	Fourth party

Leader	Gordon Wilson
Party	SNP
Leader since	15 September 1979
Last election	2 seats, 17.3%
Seats won	2
Seat change
Popular vote	331,975
Percentage	11.8%
Swing	5.5%

Results of the 1983 election in Scotland

A general election was held in the United Kingdom on Thursday 9 June 1983 and all 72 seats in Scotland were contested.^[1]

The Labour Party won 41 seats, with the Conservative Party winning 21, the SDP–Liberal Alliance winning eight and the Scottish National Party winning two.^[2]^[3]

Results

Party		Seats	Seats change	Votes	%	% change
	Labour	41	3	990,654	35.1	6.5
	Conservative	21	1	801,487	28.4	3.0
	Alliance	8	5	692,634	24.5	15.5
	SNP	2		331,975	11.8	5.5
	Other	0		7,830	0.3	0.2
Turnout:				2,824,580	72.7

^ "Commons results report" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 26 November 2020.
^ Macwhirter, Iain (2014). Road to Referendum: The Essential Guide to the Scottish Referendum. Cargo Publishing. ISBN 978-1-908885-95-1.
^ Letters (16 December 2021). "Scottish votes haven't influenced an English election result in 40 years". The National. Retrieved 2 January 2021. In 1983, Margaret Thatcher won 387 seats out of 650, a majority of 144. Labour secured 41 of the 72 seats in Scotland, the Tories 21, the SDP-Liberal Alliance 8 and the SNP 2. Obviously Scotland's 72 seats would not have influenced the outcome either way.

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v t e 1983 United Kingdom general election
Results MPs elected Scotland Opinion polling
Incumbent Prime Minister: Margaret Thatcher ( Conservative) Appointed Prime Minister: Margaret Thatcher (Conservative)
Parties elected to the House of Commons	Conservative ( Margaret Thatcher) Labour ( Michael Foot) SDP–Liberal Alliance David Steel - Liberal Roy Jenkins - SDP Ulster Unionist Party ( James Molyneaux ) Democratic Unionist Party ( Ian Paisley) Scottish National Party ( Gordon Wilson) Plaid Cymru ( Dafydd Wigley) Social Democratic and Labour Party ( John Hume) Sinn Féin ( Ruairí Ó Brádaigh) Ulster Popular Unionist Party ( James Kilfedder)
Results by area	England Northern Ireland Scotland Wales
See also	Falklands factor Diana Gould–Margaret Thatcher exchange The longest suicide note in history