United Kingdom local elections, 1983

← 1982

5 May 1983

1984 →

All 36 metropolitan boroughs, all 296 English districts and all 37 Welsh districts

	Majority party	Minority party	Third party

Leader	Margaret Thatcher	Michael Foot	David Steel & Roy Jenkins
Party	Conservative	Labour	SDP–Liberal Alliance
Leader since	11 February 1975	10 November 1980	7 July 1976 (Steel) 2 July 1982 (Jenkins)
Percentage	39%	36%	20%
Councillors	10,557	8,782	2,171
Councillors +/-	110	8	321

Local elections were held in the United Kingdom in 1983. The results were a success for Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who soon afterwards called a general election in which the Conservatives won a landslide victory. The projected share of the vote was Conservative 39%, Labour Party 36%, Liberal-SDP Alliance 20%.

The three major parties all made net gains at the expense of smaller parties and independents, despite a slight reduction in the number of councillors.

The Conservatives gained 110 seats, giving them 10,557 councillors. Labour gained just 8 seats, finishing with 8,782 seats. The Liberal-SDP Alliance gained 321 seats, finishing with 2,171 seats. It was a decent showing for Labour - with a much larger share of the vote than any opinion poll had shown since the party's split in 1981 - but a major disappointment for the Alliance. However, the subsequent general election saw the Conservative government elected by a landslide, while the Alliance came close to Labour in terms of votes, although Labour won almost 10 times as many seats.

All 36 metropolitan borough councils had one third of their seats up for election.

In 193 districts the whole council was up for election.

In 54 districts there were new ward boundaries, following electoral boundary reviews by the Local Government Boundary Commission for England.

‡ New ward boundaries

In 103 districts one third of the council was up for election.

...
Wikipedia