List of UK minor party and independent MPs elected
This is a list of members of the
United Kingdom House of Commons, from 1919 onwards, who were elected as an independent or as a member of a minor political party.
Excluded are the
Speaker, who traditionally stands for re-election without party affiliation, and MPs who were elected from a major party but then defected during a parliamentary term.
Minor party and independent MPs in
Great Britain have been rare in recent times - there have been only ten elected since 1950.
In Britain, MP are listed where they were elected as an independent, or for any party except the
Conservative Party, the
Labour Party, the
Liberal Democrats and its forerunners, the
Liberal Unionist Party, the
National Liberal parties, the
National Labour Party, the
Scottish National Party or
Plaid Cymru.
1950 - present
(b) =
by-election1 Davies had been the electoral agent of Peter Law in the general election.
2: Taylor was the nominee of
Independent Kidderminster Hospital and Health Concern, a party formed around the single issue of keeping the casualty unit at Kidderminster General Hospital. In both the
2001 and
2005 general elections his candidature was not opposed by the
Liberal Democrats.
3: Law was the sitting Labour
Member of the Welsh Assembly for Blaenau Gwent who stood for the Westminster Parliament following a dispute over the selection of the official Labour candidate,
Maggie Jones, involving an all women shortlist, a process that was opposed by many members and officials in the local party, including the retiring Labour MP
Llew Smith.
4: Galloway was the Labour MP for
Glasgow Hillhead from 1987 and then
Glasgow Kelvin following name and boundary changes in 1997. In 2003,he was expelled from the Labour Party when a party body found that he had brought the party into disrepute over the
2003 invasion of Iraq. He formed
Respect and challenged incumbent Bethnal Green & Bow Labour MP
Oona King who had supported the war.
5: Bell, a
BBC News war reporter, was nominated as a single issue candidate in opposition to the "
sleaze" allegations surrounding the sitting Conservative MP for Tatton,
Neil Hamilton. Both the Labour or Liberal Democrat parties withdrew their candidates in support of Bell.
6: Taverne was the sitting Labour MP for Lincoln who was increasingly at odds with his ever more left-wing local party. In 1973 he was deselected as an official Labour candidate. He resigned from Parliament and fought the ensuing by-election as a Democratic Labour candidate against the official Labour nominee, holding the seat in the
February 1974 general election but losing in
October 1974.
7: Milne was the sitting Labour MP for Blyth who was deselected by his local party in disputes surrounding Labour Party corruption in the North East. He stood against the official Labour nominee and won the seat, but lost in the
October 1974 general election.
8: Davies had been the Labour MP for Merthyr Tydfil since 1934 but in the run-up to the
1970 general election he was deselected by his local party on grounds of age. He stood again against the new Labour candidate and won.
9: Robertson had been an official Conservative MP for the seat since 1950 but resigned the party whip in 1959 in opposition to the Government's Scottish policy and fought the election without a Conservative opponent.
10: In 1945 and 50, MacLeod was the nominee of the Ross and Cromarty Liberal Association, but this was not connected the Liberal Party nationally. He was a supporter of
Winston Churchill and from 1951 became an official
National Liberal and
Conservative candidate and MP.
1919 - 1950
(b) =
by-election¹ Stood as a "Labour Party" candidate, but without the backing of the
Labour Party and did not take the Labour Party whip.:² Due to an oversight, Maclean's candidature was not endorsed by the
Labour Party. Once elected, he immediately took the Labour Party
whip.
1832 - 1918
Excluded during this period are MPs from the Conservative and Liberal Parties, the Labour Party and the
Labour Representation Committee, the
Liberal Unionist Party, the
Whigs and the
Tories. Before 1885 it becomes increasingly difficult to identify which MPs were independent, and Craig's classification is used.
MPs elected in
Northern Ireland are listed separately. MPs from the
Democratic Unionist Party,
Nationalist Party,
Sinn Féin,
Social Democratic and Labour Party or
Ulster Unionist Party, including those Ulster Unionists who stood as part of the
Conservative Party, are excluded. While these four are all currently regarded as major parties by the
Electoral Commission, it should be remembered that each of these parties has at times held only a single seat, and for many years Sinn Fein was a banned organisation and did not contest elections.
(b) =
by-election1: Kilfedder was an
Ulster Unionist MP for
Belfast West 1964-1966 and for
North Down until 1977 when he left the party in opposition to
Enoch Powell's proposals for integration over devolution. Kilfedder sat as an Independent Unionist until 1980, then formed the
Ulster Popular Unionist Party which primarily served as a vehicle for him and his supporters.
2: Carron was elected on the issue of the
1981 Irish Hunger Strike, standing as a "Anti H-Block/Proxy Political Prisoner" after new laws banned the nomination of any of the hunger strikers. He did not take his seat in the House of Commons. From 1982 onwards he was standing as a
Sinn Féin in elections, including his unsuccessful defence of this seat in the
1983 general election.
3: Sands was the most prominent of the
Irish Hunger Strikers and incarcareted at
HM Prison Maze at the time of his election, though he was ideologically opposed to taking his seat in the Commons.
4: Maguire was the product of an electoral pact amongst Irish Nationalists. Although in the tradition of the prior
Unity pact, he did not use the label (though is sometimes listed as a Unity MP). He did take his seat in the House of Commons, though only attended rarely.
5: Dunlop was the
Vanguard Progressive Unionist Party MP for Mid Ulster from February 1974, until the party split over leader
William Craig's proposals for power-sharing with the
Social Democratic and Labour Party in 1976. One faction, to which Dunlop belonged, formed the
United Ulster Unionist Party, under which banner he stood and sat for the constituency until standing down at the 1983 election.
6: Craig and Bradford were the
Vanguard Progressive Unionist Party MPs for Belfast East & Belfast South respectively from February 1974 and stayed in Vanguard following the 1976 party split, then merging the party into the
Ulster Unionists in February 1978.
7: In 1971 Paisley merged the Protestant Unionist Party into the new
Democratic Unionist Party.
8: Fitt was elected as a
Republican Labour Party in 1966 and 1970, but later in the latter year he left the party and co-founded the
Social Democratic and Labour Party, for which he sat as an MP until 1980, when he left that party and sat in the Commons as an Independent Socialist until his defeat in 1983.
9 Little was elected as an official
Ulster Unionist in the
1939 Down by-election. Prior to the
1945 general election he resigned from the party in protest at being subject to a reselection due to the retirement of
Viscount Castlereagh, the other official Unionist MP, and held his seat as an Independent Ulster Unionist. He died in 1946.
All MPs are listed except those from the
Ulster Unionist Party (affiliated to the
Conservative Party during this period), the
Nationalist Party,
Sinn Fein, the
Liberal Party, the
Liberal Unionist Party and the Home Rule candidates.
###Ibid#Ibid#Ibid#Ibid
*
British Parliamentary By-Elections since 1945*
List of MPs since 1660*
F. W. S. Craig,
British Parliamentary Election Statistics 1832-1987
