1931 United Kingdom general election in Scotland

none August 2020 May 2014 1931 United Kingdom general election in Scotland Scotland parliamentary no 1929 United Kingdom general election in Scotland 1929 List of MPs elected in the United Kingdom general election, 1929 1935 United Kingdom general election in Scotland 1935 All 74 Scottish seats to the House of Commons List of MPs elected in the United Kingdom general election, 1931 27 October 1931 77.4% (4.2 pp) Stanley Baldwin ggbain.35233.jpg 122 120 160 0 0 Stanley Baldwin 23 May 1923 Unionist Party (Scotland) Conservative & National Government Bewdley 22 seats,fn2 Combined results for burgh, county and university seats 35.9% 50fn2 28fn2 1,056,768fn1 Total and percentage votes given here are for territorial constituencies only 49.5%fn1 13.6 ppfn1 Herbert Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel.jpg 122 120 160 0 0 Herbert Samuel October 1931 Scottish Liberal Party Liberal & National Government Darwen 14 seats,fn2 18.1% 8fn2 6fn2 205,384fn1 8.6%fn1 9.5 ppfn1 Viscount_Simon.jpg 122 120 160 0 0 John Simon 5 October 1931 National Liberal Party (UK, 1931) National Government Spen Valley Did not contest 8fn2 8 101,430fn1 4.9%fn1 New party Arthurhenderson.jpg 122 120 160 0 0 Arthur Henderson 1 September 1931 Labour Party (UK) Burnley (Lost seat) 36 seats,fn2 42.3% 7fn2Labopp 29fn2Labopp 696,248fn1Labopp 32.6%fn1Labopp Figure is for all Scottish candidates in the Labour Opposition in 1931 9.7 ppfn1Labopp Ramsay MacDonald ggbain 35734.jpg 122 120 160 0 0 Ramsay MacDonald 24 August 1931 National Labour Organisation National Government Seaham Did not contest 1fn2 1fn2 21,803fn1 1.0%fn1 New party United Kingdom general election 1931 in Scotland.svg On Tuesday 27 October 1931,British Electoral Facts Colin Rallings Micheal Thrasher Total Politics 978-1-907278-03-7 2006 29 the 1931 United Kingdom general election was held in Scotland, to elect all 615 members of the House of Commons, with 74 seats being in Scotland. 71 seats (32 burgh constituencies and 38 county constituencies)One burgh seat, Dundee, was represented by two members of parliament. represented territorial constituencies. There was also one university constituency, which elected an additional 3 members using the Single Transferable Vote (STV) method.https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn04458/ Research Briefing: Voting systems in the UK 10 January 2023 Library of the House of Commons 26 November 2024 The election saw massive gains for the Unionists across the country, with the party winning nearly 70 per cent of all Scottish seats. The parties forming the National Government together won 63.7 per cent of the vote, and 90.5 per cent of the seats in Scotland. In contrast the Labour Party, which had been the largest party in Scotland following the 1929 general election (where it had won 41.8 per cent of the Scottish vote), was relegated into fourth place within just two years. Across the United Kingdom, the National Government coalition won 67 per cent of the popular vote and over 90 per cent of the seats in the House of Commons. Candidates Below is a table summarising the candidates of the 1931 general election in Scotland, excluding those in the Combined Scottish Universities constituency.https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7529/CBP-7529.pdf UK Election Statistics: 1918-2023, A Century of Elections Cracknell Richard Uberoi Elise Burton Matthew 9 August 2023 House of Commons Library 25 8 August 2026https://api.parliament.uk/uk-general-elections/general-elections/26 UK General Elections Results 1832-2019 12 August 2026Craig F. W. S. British Parliamentary Election Results 1918–49 https://books.google.com/books?id=MMCuCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA147 1st 1977 The Macmillan Press Ltd London and Basingstoke 978-1-349-81467-1 Affiliation CandidatesUnionist Party 56Labour Party 45Includes three Co-operative Party candidates, as part of the Labour-Co-op alliance.Scottish Liberal Party 14Independent Labour Party 9Liberal National Party 8Communist Party of Great Britain 8National Party of Scotland 5The candidates that stood were Oliver Brown in East Renfrewshire, Thomas Thomson Alexander in Edinburgh East, Elma Campbell in Glasgow St Rollox, John MacCormick in Inverness and Roland Muirhead in West Renfrewshire.New Party 5The candidates that stood were William Weir Gilmour in Coatbridge, Cecil Dudgeon in Galloway, J. Mellick in Glasgow Cathcart, W. E. Stevenson in Glasgow Shettleston and Robert Forgan in West Renfrewshire.Constituency Labour Party 3This category of candidates were those who were chosen in seats to represent Labour, however, were sponsored by the Constituency Labour Party in seats in which the Labour Party chose not to stand, and were not official candidates at this election. The candidates that stood were David Kirkwood in Dumbarton Burghs, George Buchanan in Glasgow Gorbals and Charles Aloysius O'Donnell in Glasgow Hillhead.Scottish Prohibition Party 1Leader Edwin Scrymgeour stood in Dundee.National Labour Organisation 1Incumbent sitting Labour Member of Parliament Craigie Aitchison, who defected to National Labour, stood in Kilmarnock.Total 155 Analysis National Government The Parties that made up the National Government won a total of 67 seats at this election in Scotland, including a total of 31 gained seats primarily from the Labour Party. However, the newly formed Liberal National Party also internally won seats by defects from the Scottish Liberal Party, which was within a national affiliation with the Liberal Party in the National Government. The Liberal National Party won Dunfermline Burghs from the Labour Party; however, within the National Government coalition, it won Inverness, Ross and Cromarty, Western Isles, Montrose Burghs, Fife East, Greenock and Leith from the Liberal Party. Furthermore, the Unionist Party, within a national affiliation with the Conservative Party within the National Coalition, won Aberdeenshire West and Kincardine and Galloway from the Scottish Liberals. Contrary to the losses, The Liberal Party won Paisley, Edinburgh East as well as one of the two seats in Dundee from Labour. The Liberal Party also retained its seat in the Combined Scottish Universities constituency. The Liberal National Party therefore won a total of eight seats at the election (which were all candidates that stood for the party in Scotland), with the Scottish Liberals also holding eight. The Unionist Party made further gains from Labour. These were Aberdeen North, Stirling and Falkirk, Clackmannan and Eastern Stirlingshire, Stirlingshire West, Fife West, Kirkcaldy Burghs, Dunbartonshire, Lanark, Partick, North Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire West, Maryhill, Motherwell, Camlachie, Bothwell, Coatbridge, Springburn, Rutherglen, Tradeston, South Ayrshire, Edinburgh West, Edinburgh Central, Midlothian South and Peebles, Linlithgow and Berwick and Haddington. It also took the other other of two seats in Dundee from the Scottish Prohibition Party. The Unionists also retained their two seats in the Combined Scottish Universities Constituency. The newly formed National Labour under Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald also took one seat in Scotland. This was Kilmarnock wherein the sitting MP, Craigie Aitchison, defected from the Labour Party and won the seat for National Labour in this election. Labour Opposition Following the election, the Labour Party appeared to teeter on the edge of the electoral abyss in Scotland. The Labour Party itself in Scotland managed to win three seats under its officially endorsed candidates. Two candidates, David Kirkwood in Dumbarton Burghs and George Buchanan in Glasgow Gorbals, re-contested and won their seats; however, both were members of the Independent Labour Party and endorsed by the Constituency Labour Party at this election, rather than being the official candidates of the Labour Party. A further two candidates, James Maxton in Glasgow Bridgeton and John McGovern in Glasgow Shettleston re-contested and won their seats, but as members and representing the Independent Labour Party. John McGovern also won his electoral race against an official Labour candidate. Each of these four represented losses for the official Labour Party, but stood as party of the Labour Opposition after election. However, the Independent Labour Party increasingly moved apart from Labour, and ultimately dissociating from the party in March 1932. The ILP had dominated the Labour movement in Scotland since 1918, dominating community based activism, and essentially forming the Labour Party in Scotland. This had ultimately served to undermine the organisational growth of the Labour Party in Scotland.William Kenefick Red Scotland!: The Rise and Fall of the Radical Left, C. 1872–1932 https://books.google.com/books?id=lhalBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA202 2007 Edinburgh University Press 978-0-7486-2517-8 202–203 The Labour Party, however, gained Glasgow Govan. Neil Maclean who had won the seat under the label of Independent Labour re-contested and won the seat again, this time winning as the official Labour candidate. This was one of only two gains for the Labour Party across the United Kingdom in 1931. The combined losses from the parties within the National Government and the losses from internal independent Labour candidates, Labour was reduced to holding just three seats in its own right, but carried within the Labour Opposition a slightly larger seven. Seat summary Below is a table summarising the total number of seats, gains and losses for each party in both the territorial county and burgh constituencies and the Combined Scottish Universities constituency. +PartySeats Total Gains Losses Net Of total (%)   National Government (Total) 67 colspan="2" New 31 90.5 Unionist Party (Scotland) 50 28 0 28 67.6   Liberal National 8 colspan="2" New 8 10.8 Scottish Liberal Party 8 3 9 6 10.8 National Labour Organisation 1 colspan="2" New 1 1.4   Labour Opposition (Total) 7 1 30 29 9.5 Labour Party (UK) 3 1 34 33 4.1 Independent Labour Party 2 colspan="2" Did not stand in 1929 2 2.7   Constituency Labour 2 colspan="2" New 2 2.7   Scottish Prohibition 0 0 1 1 —  Other 0 0 1 1 — Total 74 County and burgh constituency results Below is a table summarising the constituency results of the 1931 general election in Scotland, excluding the result in the Combined Scottish Universities constituency. +PartyBritish Electoral Facts Colin Rallings Micheal Thrasher Total Politics 978-1-907278-03-7 2006 27Craig F. W. S. British Parliamentary Election Results 1918–49 https://books.google.com/books?id=MMCuCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA147 1st 1977 The Macmillan Press Ltd London and Basingstoke 978-1-349-81467-1SeatsAggregate votes Total Gains Losses Net Of total (%) Total Of total (%)Adjusted for multi-member constituencies. Change (%)   National Government (Total) 64 colspan="2" New 31 90.1 1,385,385 64.0 New Unionist Party (Scotland) 48 28 0 28 67.6 1,056,768 49.5 13.6 Scottish Liberal Party 7 3 9 6 9.9 205,384 8.6 9.5   Liberal National 8 colspan="2" New 8 11.3 101,430 4.9 New National Labour Organisation 1 colspan="2" New 1 1.4 21,803 1.0 New   Labour Opposition (Total) 7 1 30 29 9.9 696,248 32.6 9.7 Labour Party (UK) 3 1Govan 34 33 4.2 525,765 24.7 17.6 Independent Labour Party 2 colspan="2" Did not stand in 1929 2 2.8 127,331 5.9   Constituency Labour 2 colspan="2" New 2 2.8 43,152 2.0 New  Communist 0 0 0 — 35,618 1.4 0.3  Scottish Prohibition 0 0 1Edwin Scrymgeour in Dundee. 1 — 32,229 0.7 0.4  NPS 0 0 0 — 20,954 1.0 0.8  New Party 0 colspan="3" New — 3,895 0.2 New  Other 0 0 1Govan Neil Maclean in Glasgow Govan re-contested and won the seat, but was the official Labour candidate in this election. 1 — 0 0.0 Total 71 0 100.0 2,174,329 100.0 0.0 Registered voters, and turnout 2,992,433Including the electorate in uncontested constituencies. 77.4https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7529/CBP-7529.pdf UK Election Statistics: 1918-2023, A Century of Elections Cracknell Richard Uberoi Elise Burton Matthew 9 August 2023 House of Commons Library 29 8 August 2026 4.2 Popular vote Popular votefn1 #ddd 600px 410px Unionist Unionist Party (Scotland) 49.5 Labour Opp. Labour Party (UK) 32.6 Liberal Scottish Liberal Party 8.6 National Liberal National Liberal Party (UK, 1931) 4.9 Communist Communist Party of Great Britain 1.4 National Labour National Labour Organisation 1.0 NPS National Party of Scotland 1.0 Other #777777 1.0 Popular vote (coalitions)fn1 #ddd 600px 410px National Gov. #000000 64.0 Labour Opp. Labour Party (UK) 32.6 Communist Communist Party of Great Britain 1.4 NPS National Party of Scotland 1.0 Other #777777 1.0 Parliament seats Parliamentary seatsfn2 #ddd 600px 410px Unionist Unionist Party (Scotland) 67.6 National Liberal National Liberal Party (UK, 1931) 10.8 Liberal Scottish Liberal Party 10.8 Labour Opp. Labour Party (UK) 9.5 National Labour National Labour Organisation 1.4 Parliament seats (coalitions)fn1 #ddd 600px 410px National Gov. #000000 90.5 Labour Opp. Labour Party (UK) 9.5 Combined Scottish Universities result General election, November 1931: Combined Scottish Universities Unionist Party (Scotland) John Buchan Liberal Party (UK) Dugald McCoig Cowan Unionist Party (Scotland) Archibald Noel Skelton Notes See also 1931 United Kingdom general election in England 1931 United Kingdom general election in Wales 1931 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland References Politics Scotland United Kingdom General election in Scotland Category:1930s elections in Scotland 1931 #Scotland