1987 United Kingdom general election

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All650 seats in theHouse of Commons 326 seats needed for a majority
Opinion polls
Turnout	32,529,578 75.3% (2.6pp)
First party Second party Third party   All Leader Margaret Thatcher Neil Kinnock David Steel (Lib.) David Owen (SDP) Party Conservative Labour Alliance Leader since 11 February 1975 2 October 1983 7 July 1976 (Steel) 21 June 1983 (Owen) Leader's seat Finchley Islwyn Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Steel) Plymouth Devonport (Owen) Last election 397 seats, 42.4% 209 seats, 27.6% 23 seats, 25.4% Seats won 376[a] 229 22 Seat change 21 20 1 Popular vote 13,760,583 10,029,807 7,341,633 Percentage 42.2% 30.8% 22.6% Swing 0.2pp 3.2pp 2.8pp
Colours denote the winning party—as shown in§ Results
Composition of theHouse of Commons after the election
Prime Minister before election Margaret Thatcher Conservative Prime Minister after election Margaret Thatcher Conservative

The1987 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 11 June 1987, to elect650 members to theHouse of Commons. The election was the third consecutive general election victory for theConservative Party, who won a majority of 102 seats and secondlandslide under the leadership ofMargaret Thatcher, who became the first Prime Minister since theEarl of Liverpool in1820 to lead a party into three successive electoral victories.

The Conservatives ran a campaign focusing on lower taxes, a strong economy and strong defence. They also emphasised that unemployment had just fallen below the 3 million mark for the first time since 1981, and inflation was standing at 4%, its lowest level since the 1960s. National newspapers also continued to largely back the Conservative government, particularlyThe Sun, which ran anti–Labour Party articles with headlines such as "Why I'm backing Kinnock, byStalin".^[1]

Labour, led byNeil Kinnock followingMichael Foot's resignation in the aftermath of the party's landslide defeat at the1983 general election, was slowly moving towards a morecentrist policy platform, following the promulgation of aleft-wing one under Foot's leadership. The main aim of the Labour Party was to re-establish itself as the main progressivecentre-left alternative to the Conservatives, after the rise of theSocial Democratic Party (SDP) forced Labour onto the defensive; and Labour succeeded in doing so at this general election. TheAlliance between the SDP and theLiberal Party was renewed, but co-leadersDavid Owen andDavid Steel could not agree whether to support either major party in the event of ahung parliament.

The Conservatives were returned to government, having suffered a net loss of only 21 seats, which left them with 376 MPs and a reduced but still strong majority of 102 seats. Labour succeeded in resisting the challenge by the SDP–Liberal Alliance to maintain its position as HM Official Opposition. Moreover, Labour managed to increase its vote share in Scotland, Wales and the North of England. Yet Labour still returned only 229 MPs to Westminster; and in certain London constituencies which Labour had held before the election, the Conservatives actually made gains.

The election was a disappointment for the Alliance, which saw its vote share fall and suffered a net loss of one seat as well as former SDP leaderRoy Jenkins losing his seat to Labour. This led to the two Alliance parties merging completely soon afterwards to become theLiberal Democrats. In Northern Ireland, the main unionist parties maintained their alliance in opposition to theAnglo-Irish Agreement; however, theUlster Unionist Party (UUP) lost two seats to theSocial Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP). One of the UUP losses was former Cabinet MinisterEnoch Powell, famous for his stance against immigration, and formerly a Conservative MP.

To date the Conservatives have not matched or surpassed their 1987 seat total in any general election held subsequently, although they recorded a greater share of the popular vote in the2019 general election. This Parliament, the 50th of its kind, would also be the last time that a Conservative government has lasted a full term with an overall majority of seats in Parliament, until the 2015-17 parliament.

The election night was covered live on the BBC, presented byDavid Dimbleby,Peter Snow andRobin Day.^[2] It was also broadcast on ITV, presented by SirAlastair Burnet,Peter Sissons andAlastair Stewart.

The 1987 general election saw the election of the firstBlack Members of Parliament:Diane Abbott,Paul Boateng andBernie Grant, all as representatives for the Labour Party. Other newcomers included future Cabinet membersDavid Blunkett,John Redwood,John Reid,Andrew Smith andAlistair Darling, future Shadow Cabinet ministerAnn Widdecombe, and futureSNP LeaderAlex Salmond. MPs who left the House of Commons as a result of this election include former Labour Prime MinisterJames Callaghan,Keith Joseph,Jim Prior,Ian Mikardo, former SDP leader and Labour Cabinet MinisterRoy Jenkins, former Health MinisterEnoch Powell (who had defected to the UUP in Northern Ireland from the Conservatives in 1974) andClement Freud.

TheConservative campaign emphasised lower taxes, a strong economy and defence, and also employed rapid-response reactions to take advantage ofLabour errors.Norman Tebbit andSaatchi & Saatchi spearheaded the Conservative campaign. However, when on "Wobbly Thursday" it was rumoured a Marplan opinion poll showed a narrow 2% Conservative lead, the "exiles" camp ofDavid Young,Tim Bell and the advertising firmYoung & Rubicam advocated a more aggressively anti-Labour message. This was when, according to Young's memoirs, Young grabbed Tebbit by the lapels and shook him, shouting: "Norman, listen to me, we're about to lose this fucking election."^[3][4] In his memoirs, Tebbit defends the Conservative campaign: "We finished exactly as planned on the ground where Labour was weak and we were strong—defence, taxation, and the economy."^[5] During the election campaign, however, Tebbit and party leaderMargaret Thatcher argued.^[6]

Bell and Saatchi & Saatchi produced memorable posters for the Conservatives, such as a picture of a British soldier's arms raised in surrender with the caption "Labour's Policy On Arms"—a reference to Labour's policy ofunilateral nuclear disarmament. The first Conservativeparty political broadcast played on the theme of "Freedom" and ended with a fluttering Union Jack, the hymnI Vow to Thee, My Country (which Thatcher would later quote in her "Sermon on the Mound") and the slogan "It's Great To Be Great Again".

The Labour campaign was a marked change from previous efforts; professionally directed byPeter Mandelson andBryan Gould, it concentrated on presenting and improvingNeil Kinnock's image to the electorate. Labour's first party political broadcast, dubbedKinnock: The Movie, was directed byHugh Hudson ofChariots of Fire fame, and concentrated on portraying Kinnock as a caring, compassionate family man. It was filmed at the Great Orme in Wales and had "Ode to Joy" as its music.^[7] He was particularly critical of the high unemployment that the government's economic policies had resulted in, as well as condemning the wait for treatment that many patients had endured on theNational Health Service. Kinnock's personal popularity jumped 16 points overnight following the initial broadcast.^[8]

On 24 May, Kinnock was interviewed byDavid Frost and claimed that Labour's alternative defence strategy in the event of a Soviet attack would be "using the resources you've got to make any occupation totally untenable".^{[citation needed]} In a speech two days later Thatcher attacked Labour's defence policy as a programme for "defeat, surrender, occupation, and finally, prolonged guerrilla fighting ... I do not understand how anyone who aspires to Government can treat the defence of our country so lightly".^[9]

During the 1987 election campaign the Conservative Party issued attack posters which claimed that the Labour Party wanted the bookYoung, Gay and Proud to be read in schools, as well asPolice: Out of School,The Playbook for Kids about Sex,^[b][10][11] andThe Milkman's on his Way,^[c] which, according to theMonday Club'sJill KnightMP – who introducedSection 28 and later campaigned againstsame-sex marriage^[12] – were being taught to "little children as young as five and six", which contained "brightly coloured pictures of little stick men showed all about homosexuality and how it was done", and "explicitly described homosexual intercourse and, indeed, glorified it, encouraging youngsters to believe that it was better than any other sexual way of life".^[13]

The followingnewspapers endorsed political parties running in the election in the following ways:^[14]

The Prime MinisterMargaret Thatcher visitedBuckingham Palace on 11 May and asked the Queen todissolve Parliament on 18 May, announcing that the election would be held on 11 June. The key dates were as follows:^[15][16]

The Conservatives were returned by a secondlandslide victory after their first in 1983,^[17] with a comfortable majority, down slightly on 1983 with a swing of 1.5% towards Labour. This marked the first time since theGreat Reform Act of 1832 that a party leader had won three consecutive elections, although the Conservatives had won consecutively in the 1950s under three different leaders (Churchill in1951,Eden in1955 andMacmillan in 1959) and early in the century, the Liberals also had three successive wins under two leaders (Henry Campbell-Bannerman in 1906 andH. H. Asquith twice in 1910). The Conservative lead over Labour of 11.4% was the second-greatest for any party since the Second World War; surpassed only by the previous 1983 result.^[18]

The BBC announced the result at 02:35. Increasingpolarisation marked divisions across the country; the Conservatives dominatedSouthern England and took additional seats from Labour in London and the rest of the South, but performed less well inNorthern England, Scotland and Wales, losing many of the seats they had won there at previous elections. Yet the overall result of this election proved thatMargaret Thatcher's policies retained significant support.

Despite initial optimism and the professional campaign byNeil Kinnock, the election brought only twenty additional seats for Labour from the 1983 Conservative landslide. In many southern areas, the Labour vote actually fell, with the party losing seats in London. However, it represented a decisive victory against the SDP–Liberal Alliance and marked out the Labour Party as the main contender to the Conservative Party. This was in stark contrast to 1983, when the Alliance votes almost matched Labour; although Labour had almost 10 times as many seats as the Alliance due to the structure of the First-Past-The-Post voting system.

The result for the Alliance was a disappointment, in that they had hoped to overtake Labour as the Official Opposition in the UK in terms of vote share. Instead, they lostRoy Jenkins' seat and saw their vote share drop by almost 3%, with a widening gap of 8% between them and the Labour Party (compared to a 2% gap four years before). These results would eventually lead to the end of the Alliance and the birth of theLiberal Democrats.

Most of the prominent MPs retained their seats. Notable losses included:Enoch Powell (the controversial former Conservative Cabinet Minister who had defected to theUlster Unionist Party),Gordon Wilson (leader of theScottish National Party) and two Alliance members: LiberalClement Freud and former SDP leaderRoy Jenkins (a former Labour Home Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer).Neil Kinnock increased his share of the vote inIslwyn by almost 12%.Margaret Thatcher increased her share of the vote in herFinchley seat, but the Labour vote increased more, slightly reducing her majority.

In Northern Ireland, the various unionist parties maintained anelectoral pact (with few dissenters) in opposition to theAnglo-Irish Agreement. However, the Ulster Unionists lost two seats to theSocial Democratic and Labour Party.

The Conservatives' victory could also arguably be attributed to the rise inliving standards during their time in office. As noted byDennis Kavanagh andDavid Butler:

Since 1987 the Conservatives had located a large constituency of "winners", people who have an interest in the return of a Conservative government. It includes much of the affluent South, home-owners, share-owners, and most of those in work, whose standard of living, measured in post-tax incomes, has risen appreciably since 1979.^[19]

Seats won in the election (outer ring) against number of votes (inner)

TheGallagher Index of disproportionality of the 1987 election was 17.82, between the Alliance and the Conservatives.

• List of MPs elected in the 1987 United Kingdom general election
• 1987 United Kingdom general election in England
• 1987 United Kingdom general election in Scotland
• 1987 United Kingdom general election in Wales
• 1987 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland
• 1987 United Kingdom local elections

• The Next Moves Forward, 1987 Conservative Party manifesto
• Britain will win with Labour, 1987 Labour Party manifesto
• Britain United: The Time Has Come, 1987 SDP–Liberal Alliance manifesto

• 1987 United Kingdom general election
• General elections to the Parliament of the United Kingdom
• 1987 elections in the United Kingdom
• June 1987 in the United Kingdom
• Premiership of Margaret Thatcher
• Neil Kinnock
• History of the Conservative Party (UK)

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