February 1974 UK general election

United Kingdom general election, February 1974

← 1970 28 February 1974 October 1974 →
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All 635 seats in the House of Commons 318 seats needed for a majority
Turnout	78.8% (6.8%)
First party Second party Third party   Leader Harold Wilson Edward Heath Jeremy Thorpe Party Labour Conservative Liberal Leader since 14 February 1963 28 July 1965 18 January 1967 Leader's seat Huyton Sidcup North Devon Last election 288 seats, 43.1% 330 seats, 46.4% 6 seats, 7.5% Seats before 281 334 6 Seats won 301 297 14 Seat change 20 37 8 Popular vote 11,645,616 11,872,180 6,059,519 Percentage 37.2% 37.9% 19.3% Swing 5.9% 8.5% 11.8%
Colours denote the winning party, as shown in the main table of results.
Prime Minister before election Edward Heath Conservative Subsequent Prime Minister Harold Wilson Labour

Edward Heath
Conservative

Harold Wilson
Labour

The United Kingdom's general election of February 1974 was held on the 28th day of that month. It was the first of two United Kingdom general elections held that year, the first election to take place after the United Kingdom became a member of the European Communities on 1 January 1973 and also the first election since the Second World War not to produce an overall majority in the House of Commons for the winning party. Instead there was a hung parliament, even though many people had expected a Conservative victory for Edward Heath. Labour won the most seats (301, which was 17 seats short of an overall majority) with the Conservatives on 297 seats, although the Conservatives had a larger share of the popular vote.

This election saw Northern Ireland diverging heavily from the rest of the United Kingdom, with all twelve MPs elected being from local parties (eleven of them representing unionist parties), following the decision of the Ulster Unionists to withdraw support from the Conservative Party in protest over the Sunningdale Agreement. In contrast the Scottish National Party achieved significant success in this election. They increased their share of the popular vote in Scotland from 11% to 22% and their number of MPs rose from 1 to 7. There were also the first Plaid Cymru MPs to be elected in a general election in Wales (they had previously won a by-election).