United Kingdom 1997 general election
Final results from ParlGov, read : Labour Party won 419 of 659 seats with 43.2% of the vote; 71.5% of registered voters cast a ballot, down 6.2 points on 1992.
- United Kingdom
- Held
Result
- Labour Party419
- Conservative Party165
- Liberal Democrats46
- Ulster Unionist Party10
- Scottish National Party6
- Plaid Cymru4
- Social Democratic and Labour Party3
- Democratic Unionist Party2
- Sinn Féin2
- Other parties (seats only)1
- Unnamed party with one seat1
Seats and votes by party
| Party | Seats | ± seats | % | ± points | Votes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labour Party | 419 | +148 | 43.2 | +8.3 | 13,518,167 |
| Conservative Party | 165 | −171 | 30.7 | −11.2 | 9,600,943 |
| Liberal Democrats | 46 | +26 | 16.8 | −1.0 | 5,242,947 |
| Referendum Party | 0 | 2.6 | 811,849 | ||
| Scottish National Party | 6 | +3 | 2.0 | +0.1 | 621,550 |
| Ulster Unionist Party | 10 | +1 | 0.8 | 0.0 | 258,349 |
| Social Democratic and Labour Party | 3 | −1 | 0.6 | +0.1 | 190,814 |
| Plaid Cymru | 4 | 0 | 0.5 | 0.0 | 161,030 |
| Sinn Féin | 2 | 0.4 | 126,921 | ||
| Democratic Unionist Party | 2 | −1 | 0.3 | 0.0 | 107,348 |
| Unnamed party with one seat | 1 | 0.0 | 12,817 | ||
| Other parties (seats only) | 1 |
± is the change against the United Kingdom 1992 general election, party by party.
Votes by party
- Labour Party 13,518,167
- Conservative Party 9,600,943
- Liberal Democrats 5,242,947
- Referendum Party 811,849
- Scottish National Party 621,550
- Ulster Unionist Party 258,349
- Social Democratic and Labour Party 190,814
- Plaid Cymru 161,030
- Sinn Féin 126,921
- Democratic Unionist Party 107,348
- Unnamed party with one seat 12,817
- 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
71.5% of the 43,818,324 registered voters cast a ballot (31,349,744 ballots), down 6.2 points on 1992. 31,286,284 of them were valid votes. The lowest turnout of this kind in our data, which begins in 1964. How turnout is counted.
Votes and seats
- Labour Party43.2% of votes63.6% of seats
- Conservative Party30.7% of votes25.0% of seats
- Liberal Democrats16.8% of votes7.0% of seats
- Ulster Unionist Party0.8% of votes1.5% of seats
- Scottish National Party2.0% of votes0.9% of seats
- Plaid Cymru0.5% of votes0.6% of seats
- Social Democratic and Labour Party0.6% of votes0.5% of seats
- Sinn Féin0.4% of votes0.3% of seats
- Democratic Unionist Party0.3% of votes0.3% of seats
- Referendum Party2.6% of votes0.0% of seats
The Gallagher index of disproportionality is 16.6 (0 when seats follow votes exactly); the effective number of parties is 3.2 by votes and 2.1 by seats; Labour Party led Conservative Party by 12.5 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.