The 1997 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland was held on 1 May with 18 MPs elected in single-seat constituencies using

first-past-the-post In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast their ...

as part of the wider general election in the United Kingdom. This was an increase of one seat in Northern Ireland, where the House of Commons as a whole had increased from 650 to 659 seats. 1,177,969 people were eligible to vote, up 53,069 from the 1992 general election. 67.39% of eligible voters turned out, down 2.6 percentage points from the last general election.

Results

The Labour Party led by

Tony Blair Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of th ...

won a large majority with 418 of 659 seats, returning to office after 18 years of

Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...

government. In Northern Ireland, Sinn Féin gained two seats, beginning a steady growth in support in elections to the House of Commons. Less than a year after this election, on 10 April 1998, the

Good Friday Agreement The Good Friday Agreement (GFA), or Belfast Agreement ( ga, Comhaontú Aoine an Chéasta or ; Ulster-Scots: or ), is a pair of agreements signed on 10 April 1998 that ended most of the violence of The Troubles, a political conflict in No ...

was signed, providing for a

Northern Ireland Assembly sco-ulster, Norlin Airlan Assemblie , legislature = 7th Northern Ireland Assembly, Seventh Assembly , coa_pic = File:NI_Assembly.svg , coa_res = 250px , house_type = Unicameralism, Unicameral , hou ...

and devolved government through the

Northern Ireland Executive The Northern Ireland Executive is the devolved government of Northern Ireland, an administrative branch of the legislature – the Northern Ireland Assembly. It is answerable to the assembly and was initially established according to the ter ...

MPs elected

By-elections

References

#Northern Ireland

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 ...

1997 elections in Northern Ireland {{Northern-Ireland-politics-stub