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The UK general election of February 1974 was held on February 28, 1974. It was the first of two United Kingdom general elections held that year, and the only election since the Second World War not to produce an overall majority in the House of Commons for the winning party, instead producing a hung parliament. The incumbent Conservative government of Edward Heath polled the most votes by a tiny margin, but the Tories were overtaken in terms of Commons seats by Harold Wilson's Labour Party due to the decision by Ulster Unionist MPs not to take the Conservative whip. After failed negotiations between Heath and Liberal leader Jeremy ThorpeThe Right Honourable John Jeremy Thorpe (born April 29, 1929) is a British politician, former leader of the Liberal Party. The son of a Conservative MP, he was educated at Eton College and Trinity College, Oxford, and was called to the bar in 1954. After, Heath resigned and Wilson returned for his second spell as Prime Minister of the United KingdomIn the United Kingdom, the Prime Minister is the head of government, exercising many of the executive functions nominally vested in the Sovereign, who is head of state. According to custom, the Prime Minister and the Cabinet (which he or she heads) are re. He would call another election in October of the same year.
This election saw Northern IrelandNorthern Ireland is the smallest of the Home Nations of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland lies in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It covers 14,139 square kilometres (5,459 square miles), and has a populati diverging heavily from the rest of the UK, with all twelve MPs elected being from local parties, following the decision of the Ulster Unionists to withdraw support from the Conservative Party in protest over the Sunningdale AgreementThe Sunningdale Agreement in December 1973, was an attempt to solve the Northern Ireland problem. It established a form of devolution, which unlike the previous form, would not be dominated by the Ulster Unionist Party. Unionists, however, feared that it.
| Party | Votes | Seats | Loss/Gain | Share of Vote (%) |
| Conservative | 11,872,180 | 297 | - 33 | 37.9 |
| LabourThe Labour Party is a centre- left or social democratic political party in Britain (see British politics), and one of the United Kingdom's three main political parties. Under its leader Tony Blair it won a landslide in the 1997 general election, and forme | 11,645,616 | 301 | + 13 | 37.2 |
| Liberal | 6,059,519 | 14 | + 8 | 19.3 |
| SNP | 633,180 | 7 | + 6 | 2.0 |
| Ulster Unionist | 232,103 | 7 | - 1 | 0.8 |
| Plaid Cymru | 171,374 | 2 | + 2 | 0.5 |
| SDLP | 160,137 | 1 | + 1 | 0.5 |
| Pro-Assembly Unionist | 94,301 | 0 | 0.3 | |
| National Front | 76,865 | 0 | 0.2 | |
| VUPP | 75,944 | 3 | + 3 | 0.2 |
| Democratic Unionist | 58,656 | 1 | 0.2 | |
| Independent Liberal | 38,437 | 0 | 0.2 | |
| Communist | 32,743 | 0 | 0.1 | |
| Independent Labour | 29,892 | 1 | 0.2 | |
| Alliance (NI) | 22,660 | 0 | 0.1 | |
| Independent | 18,180 | 0 | 0.1 | |
| Unity | 17,593 | 0 | - 2 | 0.0 |
| Independent Socialist | 17,300 | 0 | 0.1 | |
| Labour (NI) | 17,284 | 0 | 0.0 | |
| Republican Clubs | 15,152 | 0 | 0.0 | |
| Democratic Labour | 14,780 | 1 | + 1 | 0.0 |
| Independent Conservative | 11,451 | 0 | 0.0 | |
| Independent Republican | 5,662 | 0 | 0.0 | |
| People Movement | 4,576 | 0 | 0.0 | |
| WRP | 4,191 | 0 | 0.0 | |
| Social Democrat | 2,646 | 0 | 0.0 | |
| Independent Democratic | 1,976 | 0 | 0.0 |
Total votes: 31,321,982. All parties with more than 1,500 votes shown. The seats won by the Ulster Unionists are compared with those won by Unionist MPs in the 1970 election, and the seat won by the Democratic Unionist candidate is compared with the result of the Protestant Unionist in 1970.
See also MPs elected in the UK general election, 1974 (February).
UK General Election results