1923 Sallian parliamentary election

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1923 Sallian parliamentary election
27/06/1923

All 650 seats to the House of Commons of Sallia
326 seats needed for a majority
Opinion polls
Registered16,704,209
Turnout14,019,553
  First party Second party Third party
 
Leader Andrew Christian James Long James Cooper
Party Conservative Party Labour Party Liberal Party
Leader since 1 February 1911 28 January 1923 11 January 1919
Leader's seat Pool of Liberty Silverpool Palling
Seats before 337 160 92
Seats won 288 223 138
Seat change -49 +63 +46
Popular vote 5,607,821 4,065,670 3,925,475
Percentage 40.0% 29.0% 28.0%

Prime Minister before election

Andrew Christian
Conservative Party

Prime Minister

James Long
Labour Party

The 1923 Sallian parliamentary election took place on 27 June 1923. The election resulted in a hung parliament. A coalition government of the Liberal and Labour parties was formed within days. The 7th Parliament of Sallia first met on 10 July 1923.

Campaign

Campaigning began following the dissolution of the 6th Parliament of Sallia on 2 June 1923. The Conservatives campaigned mostly on economic issues, the Liberals and National Liberals campaigned on economic and social issues, the National Labour Party campaigned wholly on creating a third National Government, and the Labour Party campaigned on social issues.

Campaigning ended on 26 June 1923.

Opinion polls

Main article: Opinion polling for the 1923 Sallian parliamentary election

Endorsements

Newspaper Endorsement
The People's Paper Labour Party
The Daily News Conservative Party
The Daily Post Liberal Party

Results

Seats

  • Conservative Party - 288 seats
  • Labour Party - 223 seats
  • Liberal Party - 138 seats
  • The Speaker of the House - 1 seat

Popular vote

  • Conservative Party - 5,607,821 (40.0%)
  • Labour Party - 4,065,670 (29.0%)
  • Liberal Party - 3,925,475 (28.0%)
  • Independents and others - 50,470 (0.36%)
  • National Liberal Party - 207,489 (1.48%)
  • National Labour Party - 133,186 (0.95%)
  • The Speaker of the House - 29,441 (0.21%)

The National Liberal and National Labour parties lost all of their seats, but continued as political parties. Henry Brewer and William Redmond stayed on as the two leaders of the two parties.

Despite increasing in the number of votes cast and in vote share, the Conservative Party lost 49 seats and their overall majority.

Aftermath

The election resulted in a hung parliament, with the Conservatives winning a plurality of seats but not an overall majority. For the first time ever, only the three main parties won any seats, with all of the minor parties being wiped out completely. This dashed the Conservative Party's hopes of forming a coalition, and so Andrew Christian immediately resigned as Prime Minister and Leader of the Conservative Party, initiating the first ever Conservative leadership election. He called for James Long.

Long became the sixth Prime Minister upon Christian's resignation. On 2 July 1923, a coalition deal was sealed between the Labour and Liberal parties. They had 361 seats in total in Parliament (a majority of 73). A coalition government was formed on 5 July 1923 (with James Cooper becoming the second Deputy Prime Minister), and the 7th Parliament first met on 10 July. Disagreements soon arose between the coalition parties, and the Deputy Prime Minister called a motion of no confidence in the government on 10 April.

The government lost the confidence vote, and so James Long immediately prorogued the 7th Parliament. He dissolved it on 2 May for a parliamentary election on 27 May.