1923 Sallian parliamentary election
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
All 650 seats to the House of Commons of Sallia 326 seats needed for a majority | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Opinion polls | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Registered | 16,704,209 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Turnout | 14,019,553 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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.