1959 United Kingdom general election in Scotland

1959 United Kingdom general election in Scotland

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All 71 Scottish seats to the House of Commons
First party Second party Third party   Leader Hugh Gaitskell Harold Macmillan Jo Grimond Party Labour Unionist Liberal Last election 34 seats, 46.7% 36 seats, 50.1% 1 seats, 1.9% Seats won 38 31 [a] 1 Seat change 4 5 Popular vote 1,245,255 1,260,287 108,963 Percentage 46.7% 47.3% 4.1% Swing 0.0% 2.8% 2.1%
Results of the 1959 election in Scotland   Conservative/Unionist   Labour   Liberal   National Liberal   Independent Unionist

Main article: 1959 United Kingdom general election

A general election was held in the United Kingdom on Thursday, 8 October 1959 and all 71 seats in Scotland were contested. ^{[1] [2]} The Unionists, who aligned with the Conservative and Unionist Party at a UK level, together with their allies the National Liberals, won the largest number of votes, but lost out in seats to the Labour Party. Across the UK as a whole, the Conservatives won 365 seats, and returned as government with a majority of 100 seats.

Jo Grimond, now party leader for the Liberals, was returned as his party's only MP, representing Orkney and Shetland. The election also saw David Robertson returned as in "Independent Unionist" for Caithness and Sutherland. Robertson was the sitting MP for the seat, having resigned from taking the Conservative whip at Westminster in January of 1959. ^[3] Robertson was not opposed by an official Unionist candidate. ^[4]

MPs

List of MPs for constituencies in Scotland (1959–1964)

Results

Party			Seats [2]	Seats change	Votes [2]	%	% Change
	Labour Party		38	4	1,245,255	46.7	0.0
	Conservative and Unionist (Total)		31	5	1,260,287	47.3	2.8
		Unionist	25	5	1,060,609	39.8	1.7
		National Liberal & Conservative	6		199,678	7.5	1.1
	Liberal		1		108,963	4.1	2.1
	Independent Unionist		1	1	12,163	0.5	New
	SNP		0		21,738	0.8	0.3
	Communist		0		12,150	0.5	New
	Fife Socialist League		0		4,886	0.2	New
	Other		0		2,071	0.1	0.2
Total			71		2,667,513	100.0
Turnout:						78.1 [5]	3.0

Votes summary

Popular vote ^[a]

Unionist			47.25%
Labour			46.68%
Liberal			4.08%
Other			1.99%

Parliamentary seats ^[a]

Labour			53.52%
Unionist			43.66%
Liberal			1.41%
Ind. Unionist			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. Colin Rallings; Micheal Thrasher (2006). British Electoral Facts. Total Politics. p. 39. ISBN   978-1-907278-03-7.
3. "Sir D. Robertson Resigns Whip", The Times, 31 January 1959.
4. "Conservatives Not Likely To Oppose Sir D. Robertson", The Times, 10 September 1959.
5. Colin Rallings; Micheal Thrasher (2006). British Electoral Facts. Total Politics. p. 90. ISBN   978-1-907278-03-7.