United Kingdom 1979 general election
Final results from ParlGov, read : Conservative Party won 339 of 635 seats with 43.9% of the vote; 76.0% of registered voters cast a ballot, up 3.1 points on 1974.
- United Kingdom
- Held
Result
- Conservative Party339
- Labour Party269
- Liberal Party11
- Ulster Unionist Party5
- Democratic Unionist Party3
- Other parties (seats only)2
- Plaid Cymru2
- Scottish National Party2
- Social Democratic and Labour Party1
- Unnamed party with one seat1
Seats and votes by party
| Party | Seats | ± seats | % | ± points | Votes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative Party | 339 | +62 | 43.9 | +8.1 | 13,697,923 |
| Labour Party | 269 | −50 | 36.9 | −2.3 | 11,532,218 |
| Liberal Party | 11 | −2 | 13.8 | −4.5 | 4,313,804 |
| Scottish National Party | 2 | −9 | 1.6 | −1.3 | 504,259 |
| Ulster Unionist Party | 5 | −1 | 0.8 | 254,578 | |
| National Front | 0 | 0 | 0.6 | +0.2 | 191,719 |
| Plaid Cymru | 2 | −1 | 0.4 | −0.2 | 132,544 |
| Social Democratic and Labour Party | 1 | 0 | 0.4 | −0.1 | 82,892 |
| Democratic Unionist Party | 3 | +2 | 0.2 | 70,795 | |
| Unnamed party with one seat | 1 | 0.1 | 39,856 | ||
| Other parties (seats only) | 2 |
± is the change against the United Kingdom October 1974 general election, party by party.
Votes by party
- Conservative Party 13,697,923
- Labour Party 11,532,218
- Liberal Party 4,313,804
- Scottish National Party 504,259
- Ulster Unionist Party 254,578
- National Front 191,719
- Plaid Cymru 132,544
- Social Democratic and Labour Party 82,892
- Democratic Unionist Party 70,795
- Unnamed party with one seat 39,856
- Other parties (seats only)
ParlGov lists parties with at least 1 percent of the vote or 2 seats, so the rows do not add up to the valid votes. How we read it.
Share of the vote
Turnout
76.0% of the 41,095,490 registered voters cast a ballot (31,233,208 ballots), up 3.1 points on 1974. 31,221,362 of them were valid votes. How turnout is counted.
Votes and seats
- Conservative Party43.9% of votes53.4% of seats
- Labour Party36.9% of votes42.4% of seats
- Liberal Party13.8% of votes1.7% of seats
- Ulster Unionist Party0.8% of votes0.8% of seats
- Democratic Unionist Party0.2% of votes0.5% of seats
- Scottish National Party1.6% of votes0.3% of seats
- Plaid Cymru0.4% of votes0.3% of seats
- Social Democratic and Labour Party0.4% of votes0.2% of seats
The Gallagher index of disproportionality is 11.6 (0 when seats follow votes exactly); the effective number of parties is 2.9 by votes and 2.2 by seats; Conservative Party led Labour Party by 7.0 points of the vote. How these are computed.
Sources and licence
Sources and licence
- ParlGov 2024 Release (Döring and Manow), Harvard Dataverse (source). Licence: CC0 1.0 Universal
- Wikidata, party colours (P465) (source). Licence: CC0 1.0 Universal
Our text and compilation: CC BY 4.0. How to reuse and cite this page.