1955 United Kingdom general election in Scotland

1955 United Kingdom general election

←  1951 26 May 1955 1959  →
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All 71 Scottish seats to the House of Commons
First party Second party Third party   Leader Anthony Eden Clement Attlee Clement Davies Party Unionist Labour Liberal Last election 35 seats, 48.6% 35 seats, 47.9% 1 seat, 2.7% Seats won 36 [a] 34 1 Seat change 1 1 Popular vote 1,273,942 1,188,058 47,273 Percentage 50.1% 46.7% 1.9% Swing 1.5% 1.2% 0.8%
Results of the 1955 election in Scotland   Conservative/Unionist   Labour   Liberal   National Liberal

Main article: 1955 United Kingdom general election

A general election was held in the United Kingdom on Thursday 26 May 1955 and all 71 seats in Scotland were contested. ^[1] The election brought unparalleled success to the Unionist Party, which gained 50.1% of the vote and 36 of the 71 seats at Westminster. ^[2] It is often cited as the only time one party has achieved a majority of the Scottish vote, although six of the Unionist MPs were returned that year under the label of "National Liberal".

As of 2024 it was the last election in which the Conservative and Unionist Party won the largest number of seats in Scotland. ^[3]

MPs

List of MPs for constituencies in Scotland (1955–1959)

Results

Party			Seats	Seats change	Votes	%	% Change
	Conservative and Unionist (Total)		36	1	1,273,942	50.1	1.5
		Unionist	30	1	1,056,209	41.5	1.6
		National Liberal	6		217,733	8.6	0.1
	Labour Party		34	1	1,188,058	46.7	1.2
	Liberal		1		47,273	1.9	0.8
	Communist		0		13,195	0.5	0.1
	SNP		0		12,112	0.5	0.2
	Other		0		8,674	0.3	0.2
Total			71		2,543,254	100

Votes summary

Popular vote [a] Unionist   50.09% Labour   46.71% Liberal   1.86% Other   1.34%

Parliamentary seats [a] Unionist   50.70% Labour   47.88% Liberal   1.41%

Notes

1. The seat and vote count figures for the Unionists given here include the National Liberals

References

1. "Commons results report" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 12 November 2020.
2. Torrance, David (April 2018). "'Standing up for Scotland': The Scottish Unionist Party and 'nationalist unionism', 1912–68". Scottish Affairs. 27 (2): 179. doi:10.3366/scot.2018.0235 – via Edinburgh University Press.
3. Devine, Tom (14 September 2014). "How history turned against Tory-voting Scotland". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 17 February 2024.