On Thursday 3 May 1979, the 1979 United Kingdom general election was held in Scotland, to elect all 635 members of the House of Commons, with 71 constituencies being in Scotland.

The election was held following the defeat of the Labour government in a no-confidence motion on 28 March 1979, six months before the Parliament was due for dissolution in October 1979. The Conservative Party, led by Margaret Thatcher, ousted the incumbent Labour government of Prime Minister James Callaghan, gaining a parliamentary majority of 43 seats. The election was the first of four consecutive election victories for the Conservative Party.

Background

The 1979 Scottish devolution referendum, held on 1 March, had resulted in a majority of those voting casting their votes in favour of the creation of a Scottish Assembly, but the rules of the referendum required at least 40% of the total electorate supporting the proposal, a total which was not reached. The minority Labour government, knowing that many of its own MPs would rebel if they pressed on with the legislation to create the Assembly, refused demands from the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru to do so. On 28 March, the SNP joined the Conservatives, Liberals and others in supporting a motion of no confidence in the Government which passed by one vote, forcing a general election.

After the election, Anthony Finlay wrote in The Glasgow Herald that the SNP's support for the motion of no confidence "seemed an odd move at the time", but was based on the notion that Scottish electors would be so outraged at devolution not being enacted, despite winning the support of 52% who voted, that they would turn to the SNP in protest. As Finlay noted, the SNP's stance was to prove a "fundamental error of judgement". At an election rally in Glasgow at the start of the campaign, Callaghan attacked the SNP's role in joining with the Conservatives to bring his Government down. He described them as "turkeys voting for Christmas" and urged his Scottish supporters to "carve them up in the polling booths."

At the end of April, an Opinion Research Centre opinion poll for The Scotsman predicted Labour would win 42% of the votes in Scotland with the Conservatives winning 34%, the SNP 15% and the Liberal Party 8%.

Candidates

Below is a table summarising the candidates of the February 1974 general election in Wales.

Affiliation Candidates Labour Party 71 Conservative Party 71 Scottish National Party 71 Scottish Liberal Party 43 Communist Party of Great Britain 12 Workers Revolutionary Party 6 Scottish Labour Party 3 National Front 1 Independent Labour 1 Ecology Party 1 Fine Gael (Scotland) 1 Socialist Unity 1 Independent Democrat 1 Christian Democrat 1Total 284

Outcome Of the 11 SNP MPs elected at the previous election, seven were defeated by Conservatives and two by Labour candidates. The two surviving SNP MPs were Gordon Wilson in Dundee East and Donald Stewart in the Western Isles. Wilson's survival was attributed by Anthony Finlay as being due to Labour's choice of Jimmy Reid as their candidate to oppose him. Labour also gained Glasgow Cathcart from the Conservative's Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland Teddy Taylor. Jim Sillars, a former Labour MP who had led the breakaway Scottish Labour Party lost his South Ayrshire seat to Labour's George Foulkes, although that represented no change in the seat from the last election.

When combined with results from across the United Kingdom, the election saw a 5.2% swing from Labour to the Conservatives, the largest swing since the 1945 election. Margaret Thatcher became the UK's first female prime minister.

Results +PartySeatsAggregate votes Total Gains Losses Net Of total (%) Total Of total (%) Change (%) 44 3 0 3 62.0 1,211,445 41.5 5.2 22 7 1 6 30.9 916,155 31.4 6.7 3 0 0 4.2 262,224 9.0 0.7 2 0 9 9 2.8 504,259 17.3 13.1 0 colspan="3" — 13,737 0.5 0 0 0 — 5,926 0.2 0.1 0 colspan="3" — 869 0.0 0 colspan="3" — 809 0.0 0 colspan="3" — 552 0.0   Christian Democrat 0 colspan=3 — 312 0.0   Fine Gael (Scotland) 0 0 0 — 112 0.0 0 0 0 — 104 0.0 0 colspan=3 — 92 0.0   Independent Democrat 0 colspan=3 — 41 0.0 Total 71 0 100.0 2,916,637 100.0 0.0 Registered voters, and turnout 76.8 2.0

Incumbents defeated PartyNameConstituencyOffice held whilst in ParliamentYear electedDefeated byPartyDouglas HendersonEast AberdeenshireSNP Spokesman for Employment and Industry1974Albert McQuarrieAndrew WelshSouth AngusSNP Spokesperson for Housing1974Peter FraserIain MacCormickArgyllshire1974John MackayHamish WattBanffshire1974David MylesMargaret EwingEast Dunbartonshire1974Norman HoggGeorge ThompsonGalloway1974Ian LangWinnie EwingMoray and NairnSNP Spokesperson for External Affairs and EEC1974Alex PollockDouglas CrawfordPerth and East Perthshire1974Bill WalkerGeorge ReidClackmannan and East Stirlingshire1974Martin O'NeillTeddy TaylorGlasgow CathcartShadow Secretary of State for Scotland (1976-1979)1964John MaxtonJim SillarsElected as a Labour MPSouth AyrshireLeader of the Scottish Labour Party (1976–1979)1970George Foulkes

See also 1979 United Kingdom general election in England 1979 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland 1979 United Kingdom general election in Wales List of MPs for constituencies in Scotland (1979–1983)

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