The Portsmouth South by-election was held on 14 June 1984, following the death of
Bonner Pink, the
Conservative
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...
MP for
Portsmouth South
Portsmouth South is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2017 by Stephen Morgan of the Labour Party. Morgan is the first Labour MP to represent the seat.
Boundaries
1918–1950: The County Borough of ...
.
Portsmouth South was considered a
safe seat
A safe seat is an electoral district (constituency) in a legislative body (e.g. Congress, Parliament, City Council) which is regarded as fully secure, for either a certain political party, or the incumbent representative personally or a combinat ...
for the Conservatives. Pink had held the constituency since the
1966 general election, while the party had held the seat since its creation in
1918
This year is noted for the end of the First World War, on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, as well as for the Spanish flu pandemic that killed 50–100 million people worldwide.
Events
Below, the events ...
. At the
1983 general election, Pink had taken just over half the votes cast.
[UK General Election results: June 1983](_blank)
/ref>
Candidates
The Conservatives stood Patrick Rock.[Portsmouth South 1984](_blank)
, British Parliamentary ByElections
The Social Democratic Party
The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology.
Active parties
For ...
(SDP) had narrowly taken second place in the constituency in 1983, with just over one quarter of the vote. They stood Mike Hancock, an engineer and member of Hampshire County Council
Hampshire County Council (HCC) is an English council that governs eleven of the thirteen districts geographically located within the ceremonial county of Hampshire. As one of twenty-four county councils in England, it acts as the upper tier of ...
, who had been their unsuccessful candidate in 1983.
The Labour Party had been pushed into third place in 1983, taking 22% of the vote. They also re-stood their candidate from the previous year, Sally Thomas, a supporter of unilateral nuclear disarmament
Nuclear may refer to:
Physics
Relating to the Atomic nucleus, nucleus of the atom:
*Nuclear engineering
*Nuclear physics
*Nuclear power
*Nuclear reactor
*Nuclear weapon
*Nuclear medicine
*Radiation therapy
*Nuclear warfare
Mathematics
*Nuclear ...
. As Portsmouth South was the headquarters of the Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...
, this was a significant issue in the campaign.
Three other candidates had stood in the general election, and two of these stood in the by-election: Gordon Knight of the far right
Far-right politics, also referred to as the extreme right or right-wing extremism, are political beliefs and actions further to the right of the left–right political spectrum than the standard political right, particularly in terms of being ...
National Front, and Alan Evens who stood as "Liberal for Unilateral Nuclear Disarmament", while four new candidate completed the field. Terry Mitchell stood for the Ecology Party
The Green Party, also known as the Green Party UK, was a Green political party in the United Kingdom.
Prior to 1985 it was called the Ecology Party, and before that PEOPLE. In 1990, it separated into three political parties:
* the Green Part ...
, Thomas Layton stood as "Spare the Earth - Ecology", Anthony Andrews stood as an independent
Independent or Independents may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups
* Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s
* Independ ...
with the slogan "Vote Education: Save Schools & Colleges", and Pete Smith stood for the New National Party.
Result
The SDP unexpectedly gained the seat. The Conservative vote fell sharply, while Labour saw only a small increase. None of the other candidates were able to take 1% of the votes cast.
Hancock lost the seat at the 1987 general election, but was able to retake it in 1997
File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...
.
References
{{By-elections to the 49th UK Parliament
Portsmouth South by-election
Portsmouth South by-election
By-elections to the Parliament of the United Kingdom in Hampshire constituencies
Elections in Portsmouth
Portsmouth South by-election
1980s in Hampshire