A general election was held in the United Kingdom on Thursday, 31 March 1966, and all 71 seats in Scotland were contested.[1] The election took place only 17 months after the 1964 United Kingdom general election, with incumbent Prime Minister Harold Wilson deciding to call a snap election since his government had an unworkably small majority of only four MPs. Combined with results from across the UK, the result was a landslide victory for Wilson's Labour Party.
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All 71 Scottish seats to the House of Commons | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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![]() Results of the 1966 election in Scotland Conservative/Unionist Labour Liberal |
The election was first in which the Scottish Conservatives stood for election as a integral part of the Conservative Party, with the former Unionist Party (which had been aligned with, but separate from, the Conservatives), having merged into the Tories in April 1965.[2][3] Both Labour and Liberal parties gained seats from the newly merged Conservatives at the election.
Party | Seats | Seats change |
Votes | % | % change | |
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Labour | 46 | 3 | 1,273,916 | 49.9 | 1.2 | |
Conservative | 20 | 4 | 960,675 | 37.6 | 3.0 | |
Liberal | 5 | 1 | 172,447 | 6.8 | 0.8 | |
SNP | 0 | 128,474 | 5.0 | 2.6 | ||
Communist | 0 | 16,230 | 0.6 | 0.1 | ||
Other | 0 | 638 | 0.0 | 0.2 | ||
Turnout: | 2,552,380 |