1886 United Kingdom general election

1886 United Kingdom general election

← 1885 1–27 July 1886 (1886-07-01 – 1886-07-27) 1892 →
← outgoing members elected members →
All 670 seats in the House of Commons 336 seats needed for a majority
Turnout	74.2% (7.0 pp)
First party Second party Third party   Leader Marquess of Salisbury William Ewart Gladstone Charles Stewart Parnell Party Conservative and Liberal Unionist Liberal Irish Parliamentary Leader since April 1881 April 1880 17 October 1882 Leader's seat House of Lords Midlothian Cork City Last election 247 seats, 43.4% 319 seats, 47.4% 86 seats, 6.9% Seats won 393 192[a] 85 Seat change 146 127 1 Popular vote 1,417,627 1,244,683 94,050 Percentage 51.4% 45.1% 3.4% Swing 8.7% 2.2% 3.5%
Colours denote the winning party
Diagram displaying the composition of the House of Commons following the general election
Prime Minister before election William Ewart Gladstone Liberal Prime Minister after election Marquess of Salisbury Conservative

The 1886 United Kingdom general election took place from 1 to 27 July 1886, following the defeat of the Government of Ireland Bill 1886. It resulted in a major reversal of the results of the 1885 election as the Conservatives, led by Lord Salisbury, were joined in an electoral pact with the breakaway Unionist wing of the Liberals led by Lord Hartington (later the Duke of Devonshire) and Joseph Chamberlain. The new Liberal Unionist party elected 77 members and gave the Conservatives their parliamentary majority, but did not join them in a formal coalition.

William Ewart Gladstone's Liberals, who supported the Irish Home Rule movement, and their sometimes allies the Irish Parliamentary Party, led by Charles Stewart Parnell, were placed a distant second. The split in the Liberal Party ended the period of Liberal dominance. They had held power for 18 of the 27 years since 1859 and won five of the six elections held during that time, but would only be in power for three of the next nineteen years. The political realignment resulting from the Liberal Unionist split also meant that between this election and the end of the Second World War, only one election (in 1906) would result in a party other than the Conservatives forming a majority government (though the Liberals, and later the Labour Party, would form minority governments with support from smaller parties). This was also the first election since the 1841 election in which the Conservatives won a plurality or majority of the popular vote. They would ultimately win at least a plurality of the popular vote in every general election until 1945, again with the exception of the 1906 election.

Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).