1992 Labour Party leadership election

British leadership election to replace Neil Kinnock

1992 Labour Party leadership election | ← 1988 | 18 July 1992 (1992-07-18) | 1994 →

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Candidate  | John Smith | Bryan Gould
Overall result  | 91.0% | 9.0%
Affiliated unions | 96.3% | 3.7%
Party members | 98.0% | 2.0%
Labour MPs | 77.1% | 22.9%

* * *

| Leader before election

Neil Kinnock

| Elected Leader

John Smith

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The 1992 Labour Party leadership election followed the Labour Party's failure to win the 1992 general election and the subsequent resignation of party leader Neil Kinnock.

There were only two candidates in the election, with John Smith always the clear favourite to win.[1] The ballot took place on 18 July 1992 at the Labour Party conference. Affiliated organisations had 40% of the vote, while Constituency Labour Parties and the Parliamentary Labour Party had 30% each in the electoral college. Gordon Brown and Robin Cook were both seen as potential candidates, but did not stand.

John Smith was elected in a landslide victory with 91% of the vote. This was the last Labour Party leadership election which used the trade union block vote; the system was reformed under Smith's leadership to a one member, one vote system which was in place for the 1994 leadership election held two years later when Smith died suddenly of a heart attack.

The contest took place simultaneously with the 1992 Labour Party deputy leadership election.

## Candidates

[edit]

* Bryan Gould, Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment, Member of Parliament for Dagenham
* John Smith, Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, Member of Parliament for Monklands East

## Result

[edit]

Candidate[2] | Affiliated block votes
(40%)[3] | CLP block votes
(30%)  | PLP votes
(30%)  | Overall result

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Votes  | %  | Votes  | %  | Votes  | %  | %
| John Smith Y | 4,822 | 96.3 | 597 | 98.0 | 229 | 77.1 | 91.1
| Bryan Gould | 187  | 3.7  | 12  | 2.0  | 68  | 22.9  | 9.0

John Smith was elected leader of the Labour Party with a clear majority.

Shortly after Black Wednesday in September 1992, Labour's lead in the opinion polls began to rise. By the time of his sudden death, Smith was widely predicted and expected to become prime minister at the next general election.

In the event, he would only serve two years before his death, which precipitated another leadership election.

## Reactions

[edit]

The Sunday Times described Tony Blair, the Shadow Employment Secretary at the time, as "The Leader Labour Missed" following Smith's win.[4][better source needed] Blair would go on to be leader between 1994 and 2007.

## See also

[edit]

* 1992 Labour Party deputy leadership election
* Opinion polling for the 1997 United Kingdom general election

## Notes

[edit]

1. ^ "A Plea for Bloodshed". The Economist. 18 April 1992. p. 64.
2. ^ "Labour Party". Archived from the original on 1 February 2017. Retrieved 29 January 2017.
3. ^ Under the rules at the time of the contest, block votes were cast by delegates and the Parliamentary Party at the Labour Party Conference. Affiliated Unions held 40% of the votes, CLPs 30% and the PLP 30%.
4. ^ Byfield, Chris (14 October 2021). "Gordon Brown and John Smith fury at Tony Blair magazine cover". Express.co.uk. Retrieved 27 May 2024.

## References

[edit]

* Boothroyd, David. "Leaders of the Labour Party". United Kingdom Election Results. Archived from the original on 24 April 2018. Retrieved 16 May 2015.[self-published source]
* LeDuc, Lawrence (26–31 March 1999). "Leadership Selection and Party Renewal" (PDF). The Consequences of Candidate Selection. 27th ECPR Joint Sessions of Workshops. Mannheim: European Consortium for Political Research. pp. 8–12. Retrieved 16 May 2015.

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John Smith

Politics|

* Labour Party
* North Lanarkshire
* Monklands East
* Shadow Cabinet of John Smith
* One more heave

Shadow Cabinet elections|

* 1979
* 1980
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* 1982
* 1983
* 1984
* 1985
* 1986
* 1987
* 1988
* 1989
* 1990
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Party elections|

* 1992

Family|

* Elizabeth Smith
* Sarah Smith

Related topics|

* John Smith House
* Prawn Cocktail Offensive

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Labour Party

History

| Main|

* History of the Labour Party

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Topics|

* Electoral history
* General election manifestos
* History of the socialist movement in the United Kingdom
* European Parliamentary Labour Party
* Scottish Labour Party (1888)
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* National Labour Organisation
* Labour Independent Group
* Campaign for Democratic Socialism
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* Militant tendency
* The longest suicide note in history
* Labour Listens
* One more heave
* New Labour
* Tony's Cronies
* Blue Labour
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* Chakrabarti Inquiry

Leadership

| Leaders|

* Hardie
* Henderson
* Barnes
* MacDonald
* Henderson
* Adamson
* Clynes
* MacDonald
* Henderson
* Lansbury
* Attlee
* Morrison^
* Gaitskell
* Brown^
* Wilson
* Callaghan
* Foot
* Kinnock
* Smith
* Beckett^
* Blair
* Brown
* Harman^
* Miliband
* Harman^
* Corbyn
* Starmer

|

Deputy Leaders|

* Clynes
* Graham
* Attlee
* Greenwood
* Morrison
* Griffiths
* Bevan
* Brown
* Jenkins
* Short
* Foot
* Healey
* Hattersley
* Beckett
* Prescott
* Harman
* Watson
* Rayner

General Secretaries|

* MacDonald
* Henderson
* Middleton
* Phillips
* Williams
* Barker^
* Nicholas
* Hayward
* Mortimer
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* Sawyer
* McDonagh
* Triesman
* Carter
* Watt
* Collins
* McNicol
* Formby
* Evans

Treasurers|

* Henderson
* MacDonald
* Henderson
* Lathan
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* Gaitskell
* Bevan
* Nicholas
* Davies
* Callaghan
* Atkinson
* Varley
* Booth
* McCluskie
* Burlison
* Prosser
* Elsby
* Dromey
* Holland

Leaders in the Lords|

* Haldane
* Cripps
* Ponsonby
* Snell
* Addison
* Jowitt
* Alexander
* Pakenham
* Shackleton
* Shepherd
* Peart
* Hughes
* Richard
* Jay
* Williams
* Amos
* Ashton
* Royall
* Smith of Basildon

Scottish Labour Leaders|

* Dewar
* McLeish
* Jamieson^
* McConnell
* Jamieson^
* Alexander
* Jamieson^
* Gray
* Lamont
* Sarwar^
* Murphy
* Gray^
* Dugdale
* Rowley^
* Baillie^
* Leonard
* Baillie^
* Sarwar

PLP Chairs|

* Hardie
* Henderson
* Barnes
* MacDonald
* Henderson
* Hodge*
* Wardle*
* Adamson
* Clynes
* MacDonald
* Henderson
* Lansbury
* Attlee
* Lees-Smith*
* Pethick-Lawrence*
* Greenwood*
* Gaitskell
* Wilson
* Houghton
* Mikardo
* Hughes
* Willey
* Dormand
* Orme
* Hoyle
* Soley
* Corston
* Clwyd
* Lloyd
* Watts
* Cryer
* Morden

EPLP Leaders|

* Stewart
* Prescott
* Castle
* Lomas
* Martin
* Seal
* Ford
* Green
* David
* Donnelly
* Murphy
* Titley
* Willmott
* Corbett

* = wartime, in opposition
^ Interim/Acting

Internal elections and selections

| Leadership elections|

* 1922 Ramsay MacDonald
* 1931 Arthur Henderson
* 1932 George Lansbury
* 1935 Clement Attlee
* 1955 Hugh Gaitskell
* 1960
* 1961
* 1963 Harold Wilson
* 1976 James Callaghan
* 1980 Michael Foot
* 1983 Neil Kinnock
* 1988
* 1992 John Smith
* 1994 Tony Blair
* 2007 Gordon Brown
* 2010 Ed Miliband
* 2015 Jeremy Corbyn
* 2016
* 2020 Keir Starmer

* * *

|

Deputy Leadership elections|

* 1952 Herbert Morrison
* 1953
* 1956 Jim Griffiths
* 1959 Aneurin Bevan
* 1960 George Brown
* 1961
* 1962
* 1970 Roy Jenkins
* 1971
* 1972 Edward Short
* 1976 Michael Foot
* 1980 Denis Healey
* 1981
* 1983 Roy Hattersley
* 1988
* 1992 Margaret Beckett
* 1994 John Prescott
* 2007 Harriet Harman
* 2015 Tom Watson
* 2020 Angela Rayner

Shadow Cabinet elections and reshuffles|

* Sep 1931 (Henderson)
* Nov 1931
* 1932 (Lansbury)
* 1933
* 1934
* 1935 (Attlee)
* 1936
* 1937
* 1938
* 1939
* 1951
* 1952
* 1953
* 1954
* 1955
* 1956 (Gaitskell)
* 1957
* 1958
* 1959
* 1960
* 1961
* 1962
* 1963 (Wilson)
* 1970
* 1971
* 1972
* 1973
* 1979 (Callaghan)
* 1980 (Foot)
* 1981
* 1982
* 1983 (Kinnock)
* 1984
* 1985
* 1986
* 1987
* 1988
* 1989
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* 1991
* 1992 (Smith)
* 1993
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* 1995
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* 2010 (Miliband)
* June 2016 (Corbyn)
* May 2021 (Starmer)
* November 2021
* 2023

Party structure

| Constitution|

* Clause IV

|

Executive|

* National Executive Committee
* General Secretary
* Treasurer

Parliamentary|

* Parliamentary Labour Party
* Chief Whip of the Labour Party

Conference|

* Labour Party Conference

Subnational|

* Scottish Labour
* Welsh Labour
* Labour Party in Northern Ireland

Directly elected city mayoral authorities|

* London Labour

CLPs|

* Constituency Labour Party
* Labour International

Miscellaneous|

* National Policy Forum
* Affiliated trade unions
* Trade Union and Labour Party Liaison Organisation
* Labour Co-operative
* Co-operative Party
* Labour – Federation of Labour Groups

Associated organisations

| List|

* Organisations associated with the Labour Party

|

Sectional groups|

* Young Labour
* Labour International
* LGBT+ Labour
* Labour for Trans Rights
* Labour Students
* BAME Labour
* Disability Labour

Factional groups|

* Blue Labour
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* Christians on the Left
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* Fabian Society
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* Future Britain
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* Jewish Labour Movement
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* Labour Growth Group
* Labour Party Irish Society
* Labour Representation Committee (2004)
* Labour Women's Network
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* National Union of Labour and Socialist Clubs
* Progressive Britain
* Red Wall Caucus
* Revolutionary Communist Party Formerly Socialist Appeal
* Socialist Health Association
* Socialist Educational Association
* Socialist Environment and Resources Association
* Socialist Campaign Group
* Socialist Youth Network
* Socialist societies

Media publications|

* LabourList
* Tribune

Party alliances

| Current|

* Party of European Socialists
* Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats
* Progressive Alliance
* Socialist International

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