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This is a complete list of members of Parliament elected at the 1931 general election, held on 27 October.
These representative diagrams show the composition of the parties in the 1931 general election. First, immediately after the election.
Affiliation | Members | |
Conservative Party | 470 | |
Labour Party | 49 | |
Liberal National | 35 | |
Liberal | 32 | |
National Labour | 13 | |
National | 4 | |
Independent Liberal | 4 | |
Nationalist | 2 | |
Ind. Labour Party | 3 | |
Independent | 3 |
Second, at the end of 1933, after the Liberal Party withdrew from the National Government.
Affiliation | Members | |
Conservative Party | 467 | |
Labour Party | 52 | |
Liberal | 36 | |
Liberal National | 35 | |
National Labour | 13 | |
National | 4 | |
Nationalist | 2 | |
Ind. Labour Party | 3 | |
Independent | 3 |
See the list of United Kingdom by-elections.
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, and may also legislate for the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster in London. Parliament possesses legislative supremacy and thereby holds ultimate power over all other political bodies in the United Kingdom and the Overseas Territories. While Parliament is bicameral, it has three parts, consisting of the sovereign (King-in-Parliament), the House of Lords, and the House of Commons. In theory, power is officially vested in the King-in-Parliament. However, the Crown normally acts on the advice of the prime minister, and the powers of the House of Lords are limited to only delaying legislation; thus power is de facto vested in the House of Commons.
The politics of the United Kingdom functions within a constitutional monarchy where executive power is delegated by legislation and social conventions to a unitary parliamentary democracy. From this a hereditary monarch, currently Charles III, serves as head of state while the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, currently Rishi Sunak, serves as the elected head of government.
The 1935 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 14 November, and resulted in a large, albeit reduced, majority for the National Government now led by Stanley Baldwin of the Conservative Party. The greatest number of members, as before, were Conservatives, while the National Liberal vote held steady. The much smaller National Labour vote also held steady but the resurgence in the main Labour vote caused over a third of their MPs, including National Labour leader Ramsay MacDonald, to lose their seats. It was the last election in which the largest party won a majority of votes cast.
The 1931 United Kingdom general election was held on Tuesday 27 October 1931 and saw a landslide election victory for the National Government which had been formed two months previously after the collapse of the second Labour government. Collectively, the parties forming the National Government won 67% of the votes and 554 seats out of 615. Although the bulk of the National Government's support came from the Conservative Party and the Conservatives won 470 seats, National Labour leader Ramsay MacDonald remained as Prime Minister. The Labour Party suffered its greatest defeat, losing four out of every five seats compared with the previous election, including the seat of its leader Arthur Henderson. Ivor Bulmer-Thomas said the results "were the most astonishing in the history of the British party system". It is the most recent election in which one party received an absolute majority of the votes cast, and the last UK general election not to take place on a Thursday. It would be the last election until 1997 in which a party won over 400 seats in the House of Commons.
The Liberal Party was formally established in 1859 and existed until merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to create the Liberal Democrats.
The 1940 Rochdale by-election was a by-election held for the British House of Commons constituency of Rochdale in Lancashire on 20 July 1940.
The 1936 Combined Scottish Universities by-election was a by-election held from 27 to 31 January 1936 for the Combined Scottish Universities, a university constituency of the British House of Commons.
The 1937 Holland with Boston by-election was a parliamentary by-election held on 24 June 1937 for the British House of Commons constituency of Holland with Boston.
The 1945 Caernarvon Boroughs by-election was a parliamentary by-election held on 26 April 1945 for the British House of Commons constituency of Caernarvon Boroughs.
The 1941 Berwick-upon-Tweed by-election was a parliamentary by-election held on 18 August 1941 for the British House of Commons constituency of Berwick-upon-Tweed.
Mangala Nath Moonesinghe was a Sri Lankan lawyer and politician. He served as a Member of Parliament for Bulathsinhala electorate between 1965 and 1977, and the Kalutara electorate between 1989 and 1994. He was Sri Lankan High Commissioner to the United Kingdom from 2000 to 2002 and Sri Lankan High Commissioner to India from 1995 to 2000.
The list of by-elections in the United Kingdom is divided chronologically by parliament: