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| 1983 election |
| 1987 election |
| 1992 election |
The general election of June 11, 1987 was the third victory in a row for Margaret Thatcher and the Conservatives. She was the first leader since the Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool to win three successive elections.
The Conservative government had survived the industrial disputes with the mine workers (1984-85) and the print unions (1985-86), the 1986 Westland problems had been put aside with the loss of Michael Heseltine and Leon Brittan and the economy was performing well. Labour was in the throes of modernization and a return to more centralist policies under Neil Kinnock but expected to do better than in 1983. The SDP and the LiberalThe Liberal Democrats ("Lib Dems") are a social liberal political party based in the United Kingdom. The party was formed in 1988 by the merger of the Liberal Party and the short lived Social Democratic Party (the two parties had already been in an allians renewed their AllianceUnited Kingdom 1981 The SDP-Liberal Alliance was an electoral alliance of the Social Democratic Party and the Liberal Party in the UK that ran from 1981 to 1988, when the bulk of the two parties merged to form the Social and Liberal Democrats, later refer and continued to split the non-Conservative vote; neither Alliance leader ( David OwenDavid Anthony Llewellyn Owen, Baron Owen PC (born July 2, 1938), is a British politician. In 1981 he was one of the founders of the Social Democratic Party, and was its leader from 1983 to 1987, and of the reformed SDP between 1988 and 1990. He was also t and David SteelDavid Martin Scott Steel, Baron Steel of Aikwood (born March 31, 1938), is a British and Scottish politician and a Liberal Democrat member of the UK House of Lords. He was leader of the Liberal Party from 1976 until its 1988 merger with the Social Democra) could agree to support either one of the major parties in the event of a hung parliamentIn Parliamentary systems, a hung parliament is one in which no one political party has an outright majority. This situation is normal in legislatures with proportional representation, but in first past the post chambers, it is a rarity, as the voting syst.
The Conservatives advertising campaign by Tim Bell was dominated by anti-Labour sentiment, attacking mainly on taxation but also with rapid-response campaigns to pick up on Labour errors. The Labour campaign was a marked change from previous efforts, professionally directed by Peter MandelsonThe Right Honourable Peter Benjamin Mandelson (born October 21, 1953) is a British Labour politician, and former Member of Parliament for Hartlepool, who has been nominated as European Commissioner for Trade. He is widely regarded as one of the key archit and Bryan GouldBryan Gould (born February 11, 1939) is a former politician in the United Kingdom, but was born in New Zealand. He was Labour MP for Dagenham until his resignation on May 17, 1994. He was member of Neil Kinnock's Shadow Cabinet, but was defeated in the La it concentrated on presenting and improving Kinnock's image to the electorate.
The Conservatives were returned with a 102 seat majority, 42 down on 1983 with a swing of 1% or so towards Labour. There were increasingly marked divisions across the country, the Conservatives dominated the South but performed poorly in the North, Scotland, and Wales.
Almost all the 'big names' held onto their seats. Of the more notable failures there were Enoch PowellJohn Enoch Powell ( June 16, 1912 February 8, 1998) was a controversial British politician, the controversy mainly stemming (with some irony) from a speech he made on immigration in 1968. Even before his death, Powell had long been treated as an icon by t and two Alliance members - Liberal Clement Freud and former SDP leader Roy Jenkins.
In Northern Ireland the various Unionist parties maintained an electoral pact (with a couple of dissentients) in opposition to the Anglo-Irish Agreement.
Turnout: 32,530,204 (75.3 %)
| Party | Votes | Seats | Loss/Gain | Share of Vote (%) |
| Conservative | 13,760,935 | 376 | - 21 | 42.2 |
| Labour | 10,029,270 | 229 | + 20 | 30.8 |
| Alliance | 7,341,651 | 22 (17 and 5) | + 2 | 22.6 |
| SNP | 416,473 | 3 | + 1 | 1.3 |
| Ulster Unionist | 276,230 | 9 | - 2 | 0.8 |
| SDLP | 154,067 | 3 | + 2 | 0.5 |
| Plaid Cymru | 123,599 | 3 | + 1 | 0.4 |
| Green | 89,753 | 0 | 0.3 | |
| Democratic Unionist | 85,642 | 3 | 0.3 | |
| Sinn Féin | 83,389 | 1 | 0.3 | |
| Alliance (NI) | 72,671 | 0 | 0.2 | |
| Workers | 19,294 | 0 | 0.1 | |
| Popular Unionist | 18,420 | 1 | 0.1 | |
| Real Unionist | 14,467 | 0 | 0.1 | |
| ProtestantUnionist | 2,147 | 0 | 0.0 |
See also MPs elected in the UK general election, 1987.
UK General Election results| Politics | Business | Finance |
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