Conservative Party leadership election, 1990

Conservative Party leadership election, 1990

← 1989 20–27 November 1990 (1990-11-20 – 1990-11-27) 1995 →

Candidate John Major Michael Heseltine First ballot Did not enter 152 (40.9%) Second ballot 185 (49.7%) 131 (35.2%) Third ballot Unopposed Withdrew   Candidate Douglas Hurd Margaret Thatcher First ballot Did not enter 204 (54.8%) Second ballot 56 (15.1%) Withdrew Third ballot Withdrew Withdrew

Leader before election Margaret Thatcher Elected Leader John Major

Margaret Thatcher

John Major

The 1990 Conservative Party leadership election in the United Kingdom took place on 20 November 1990 following the decision of Michael Heseltine, former Defence and Environment Secretary, to challenge Margaret Thatcher, the incumbent Prime Minister, for leadership of the Conservative Party.

Thatcher failed to win outright under the terms of the election in the first ballot, and was persuaded to withdraw from the second round of voting. She announced her resignation on the morning of 22 November 1990, ending more than 15 years as Conservative leader and 11 years as Prime Minister.

Discontent with Thatcher's leadership of the party had been growing over the latter years of her tenure. There were differences within the Cabinet over Thatcher's perceived intransigence in her approach to the European Economic Community. In particular, many leading Conservatives wanted Britain to join the Exchange Rate Mechanism, a move which Thatcher did not favour. In 1989, the then Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe and Chancellor Nigel Lawson forced Thatcher to agree to the "Madrid Conditions", namely that Britain would eventually join the ERM "when the time was right". In July 1989, she retaliated by removing Howe from the Foreign Office, while making him Deputy Prime Minister (in theory a promotion but in reality removing him from a key post).

Whereas Thatcher had presided over an economic boom at the time of her third general election victory in 1987, by the autumn of 1989 interest rates had to be raised to 15% to cool inflation, which was now pushing 10%. Rates would remain at that level until October 1990. Lawson, who had clashed with Thatcher over "shadowing the Deutschmark" early in 1988, resigned as Chancellor in October 1989, unable to accept Thatcher publicly taking independent advice from the economist Alan Walters. The beneficiary was John Major, little known to the public hitherto, who had briefly been promoted to succeed Howe as Foreign Secretary in July before succeeding Lawson as Chancellor in October, putting him in pole position to succeed Thatcher.

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