A vote of no confidence in the British Labour government, 1974–1979, of James Callaghan occurred on 28 March 1979. The vote was brought by the Official Opposition leader Margaret Thatcher and was lost by the Labour government by one vote (311 votes to 310), which was announced at 10:19 pm. The result mandated a general election that was won by Thatcher's Conservative Party. The last time an election had been forced by the UK House of Commons was in 1924, when Ramsay MacDonald, the first Labour prime minister, lost a vote of confidence. Labour politician Roy Hattersley later remarked that the vote marked "the last rites" of Old Labour. Labour did not return to government for another 18 years, with New Labour ideology. The BBC has referred to the vote as "one of the most dramatic nights in Westminster history".
Background
The general election at the end of February 1974 resulted in a hung parliament where Labour had slightly more seats than any other party but no overall majority. The Conservatives tried to negotiate a coalition with the Liberal Party but failed and Edward Heath's government resigned. Labour came to power in March 1974, its leader Harold Wilson having accepted the royal invitation to form a minority government. Wilson called a second election for October 1974, which gave Labour a majority of three MPs. The Labour government implemented pay restraint to control global inflation, coupled with stagnation and unemployment at record post-war levels. Wilson resigned in 1976 in poor health, on turning 60, and James Callaghan became leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister. By-elections and defections whittled away Labour's majority, which technically was non-existent by April 1976 in the House of Commons after a by-election defeat, the defection of two Labour MPs to form the Scottish Labour Party and the defection of backbencher John Stonehouse.
In 1977 the Labour government and the Liberal Party agreed to the Lib–Lab pact by which the Liberals agreed to support the government in return for pre-legislative consultation. The pact lasted for a year before lapsing in July 1978, at which point the Liberal Party declared that they supported a general election as soon as possible and would therefore support any no confidence motions. Callaghan was widely expected to call an election in September 1978 but decided against this, hoping he would fare better in a year's time once the economy had improved; however, the winter saw a prolonged period of industrial unrest known as the Winter of Discontent which severely reduced Labour's popularity.
On 14 December 1978, the government survived a vote of confidence by ten votes after negotiating the support of the Ulster Unionists. Draft legislation was before the House to give Northern Ireland more parliamentary seats; it cleared the House of Commons on 17 January 1979.
On 1 March 1979, a referendum on the Scotland Act saw a majority vote for devolution, but a threshold imposed by anti-devolution MP George Cunningham requiring 40% of the electorate to be in favour was not reached due to low turnout. When the government decided not to implement the Act, the Scottish National Party MPs put down a motion of no confidence. After consulting with the Liberal Party to confirm that they were still supporting motions of no confidence, on Monday, 26 March, the Leader of the Opposition, Margaret Thatcher, put down an early day motion "[t]hat this House has no confidence in Her Majesty's Government." The government arranged for this motion to be debated on Wednesday 28 March as an opposition motion in government time.
Motion and debate
During the debate, Callaghan criticised the Scottish National Party, committed to independence for Scotland, for voting with the Conservative Party who opposed devolution. The Scottish National Party would subsequently lose all but two of their seats in the election following the no confidence vote.
As leader of the House of Commons, Michael Foot closed the debate. During his speech, he made a widely quoted put-down of Liberal leader David Steel, describing him as having "passed from rising hope to elder statesman without any intervening period whatsoever".