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1923 United Kingdom general election

← 1922 6 December 1923 1924 →
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All 615 seats in the House of Commons 308 seats needed for a majority
Turnout	71.1% ( 1.9 pp)
First party Second party Third party   Leader Stanley Baldwin Ramsay MacDonald H. H. Asquith Party Conservative Labour Liberal Leader since 23 May 1923 21 November 1922 30 April 1908 Leader's seat Bewdley Aberavon Paisley Last election 344 seats, 38.5% 142 seats, 29.7% 115 seats, 28.8% Seats won 258 191 158 Seat change 86 49 43 Popular vote 5,286,159 4,267,831 4,129,922 Percentage 38.0% 30.7% 29.7% Swing 0.5 pp 1.0 pp 0.9 pp
Colours denote the winning party—as shown in § Results
Composition of the House of Commons following the 1923 general election
Prime Minister before election Stanley Baldwin Conservative Prime Minister after election Ramsay MacDonald Labour

The 1923 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 6 December 1923. The Conservatives, led by Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, won the most seats, but Labour, led by Ramsay MacDonald, and H. H. Asquith's reunited Liberal Party gained enough seats to produce a hung parliament. It is the most recent UK general election in which a third party won over 100 seats (158 for the Liberals) and the most narrow gap, of a "mere" 100 seats, between the first and third parties since. The Liberals' percentage of the vote, 29.7%, trailed Labour's by only one percentage point and has not been exceeded by a third party at any general election since.

MacDonald formed the first Labour government with tacit support from the Liberals. Rather than trying to bring the Liberals back into government, Asquith's motivation for permitting Labour to enter power was that he hoped they would prove to be incompetent and quickly lose support. Being a minority, MacDonald's government only lasted ten months and another general election was held in October 1924.

Overview

In May 1923, Prime Minister Bonar Law fell ill and resigned on 22 May, after just 209 days in office. He was replaced by Chancellor of the Exchequer, Stanley Baldwin. The Labour Party had also changed leaders since the previous election, after J. R. Clynes was defeated in a leadership challenge by former leader Ramsay MacDonald.

Having won an election just the year before, Baldwin's Conservative Party had a comfortable majority in the House of Commons and could have waited another four years, but the government was concerned and the Conservatives were divided. Baldwin felt the need to receive a mandate from the people, which, if successful, would strengthen his grip on the Conservative Party leadership and allow him to introduce tariff reform and imperial preference as protectionist trade policies over the objections of the free trade elements of his party.

Oxford historian and Conservative MP John Marriott depicts the gloomy national mood:

The times were still out of joint. Mr. Baldwin had indeed succeeded in negotiating (January 1923) a settlement of the British debt to the United States, but on terms which involved an annual payment of £34 million, at the existing rate of exchange. The French remained in the Ruhr. Peace had not yet been made with Turkey; unemployment was a standing menace to national recovery; there was continued unrest among the wage-earners, and a significant strike among farm labourers in Norfolk.

Confronted by these difficulties, convinced that economic conditions in England called for a drastic change in fiscal policy, and urged thereto by the Imperial Conference of 1923, Mr. Baldwin decided to ask the country for a mandate for Preference and Protection.

Parliament was dissolved on 16 November and the result backfired on Baldwin, who lost a host of seats to Labour and the Liberals, resulting in a hung parliament. A reformation of the Conservative-Liberal coalition which had governed the country from 1918 to 1922 was not practical, as Baldwin had alienated both of the two most prominent Liberals, Asquith and David Lloyd George.

Aftermath

Faced with the decision of whether to support a minority Conservative or Labour government on an issue-by-issue basis, Asquith ultimately chose to support the Labour government. This decision was influenced by Lloyd George's faction, which was strongly opposed to collaborating with Baldwin, and the belief amongst the Liberals as a whole that Labour's electoral success was largely due to the previous split within the Liberal Party. Asquith anticipated that a Labour government would reveal Labour's policies as impractical, thereby enabling the Liberals to surpass them in the subsequent election. Consequently, the Liberals joined forces with Labour to defeat Baldwin's King's Speech, leading to the fall of his government and allowing Labour to form its first government.

Results

Votes summary

Seats summary

Constituency results

Transfers of seats

• All comparisons are with the 1922 election.
  • In some cases the change is due to the MP defecting to the gaining party. Such circumstances are marked with a *.
  • In other circumstances the change is due to the seat having been won by the gaining party in a by-election in the intervening years, and then retained in 1923. Such circumstances are marked with a †.

See also

• List of MPs elected in the 1923 United Kingdom general election
• 2019 United Kingdom general election, the next UK general election after 1923 to be held in December.
• 1923 United Kingdom general election in Scotland
• 1923 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland

Notes

1. This represents the joint total of the Liberals and the National Liberals in the 1922 election. The two parties reunified for the 1923 election.
2. All parties shown. Conservatives include Ulster Unionists. Liberal total is compared to joint total of Liberals and National Liberals in 1922.

1. The seat and vote count figures for the Liberals given here include the Speaker of the House of Commons

References

1. Morgan, William Thomas (1924). "The British Elections of December, 1923". American Political Science Review. 18 (2): 331–340. doi:10.2307/1943928. ISSN 0003-0554.
2. "Andrew Bonar Law". Number10.gov.uk. Archived from the original on 25 August 2008. Retrieved 31 July 2008.
3. Marriott 1948, p. 517; Doerr 1998, p. 75–76.
4. "Parliamentary Election Timetables" (PDF) (3rd ed.). House of Commons Library. 25 March 1997. Retrieved 3 July 2022.
5. "Election Statistics: UK 1918–2007" (PDF). House of Commons Library. Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 July 2014. Retrieved 23 May 2014.

Sources

• Craig, F. W. S. (1989), British Electoral Facts: 1832–1987, Dartmouth: Gower, ISBN 0900178302
• Doerr, Paul W. (1998), British foreign policy 1919–1939, Manchester: Manchester University Press, ISBN 0719046718
• Marriott, J. A. R. (1948), Modern England: 1885–1945

Further reading

• Cook, Chris P. (1969), "Wales and the General Election of 1923", Welsh History Review, 4 (4): 393–4
• Craig, F. W. S., ed. (1975), British General Election Manifestos, 1900-74
• Irwin, Douglas A. (1995), Industry or Class Cleavages over Trade Policy? Evidence from the British General Election of 1923 (PDF), National Bureau of Economic Research
• Self, Robert (1992), "Conservative reunion and the general election of 1923: a reassessment", Twentieth Century British History, 3 (3): 249–273, doi:10.1093/tcbh/3.3.249
• Smart, Nick (1996), "Baldwin's Blunder? The General Election of 1923", Twentieth Century British History, 7 (1): 110–139, doi:10.1093/tcbh/7.1.110

External links

• United Kingdom election results—summary results 1885–1979 Archived 8 October 2020 at the Wayback Machine

Manifestos

• 1923 Conservative manifesto
• 1923 Labour manifesto
• 1923 Liberal manifesto

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See also Elections in England Northern Ireland Scotland Wales Great Britain

• 1923 United Kingdom general election
• General elections to the Parliament of the United Kingdom
• 1923 elections in the United Kingdom
• December 1923 events in Europe
• Ramsay MacDonald
• Stanley Baldwin
• H. H. Asquith