See main article: 1992 United Kingdom general election.
| Election Name: | 1992 United Kingdom general election |
| Country: | Scotland |
| Type: | parliamentary |
| Ongoing: | no |
| Previous Election: | 1987 United Kingdom general election in Scotland |
| Previous Year: | 1987 |
| Previous Mps: | List of MPs elected in the United Kingdom general election, 1987 |
| Next Election: | 1997 United Kingdom general election in Scotland |
| Next Year: | 1997 |
| Seats For Election: | All 72 Scottish seats to the House of Commons |
| Elected Mps: | List of MPs elected in the United Kingdom general election, 1992 |
| Election Date: | 9 April 1992 |
| Turnout: | 75.5%, 0.4% |
| Leader1: | Neil Kinnock |
| Leader Since1: | 2 October 1983 |
| Party1: | Labour Party (UK) |
| Seats Before1: | 50 |
| Seats1: | 49 |
| Seat Change1: | 1 |
| Uk Seats1: | 418 |
| Popular Vote1: | 1,142,911 |
| Percentage1: | 39.0% |
| Swing1: | 3.4% |
| Leader2: | John Major |
| Leader Since2: | 28 November 1990 |
| Party2: | Conservative Party (UK) |
| Seats Before2: | 10 |
| Seats2: | 11 |
| Seat Change2: | 1 |
| Uk Seats2: | 46 |
| Popular Vote2: | 751,950 |
| Percentage2: | 25.6% |
| Swing2: | 1.6% |
| Leader4: | Paddy Ashdown |
| Leader Since4: | 16 July 1988 |
| Party4: | Liberal Democrats (UK) |
| Seats Before4: | 9 |
| Seats4: | 9 |
| Uk Seats4: | 6 |
| Popular Vote4: | 383,856 |
| Percentage4: | 13.1% |
| Swing4: | 6.1% |
| Leader5: | Alex Salmond |
| Leader Since5: | 22 September 1990 |
| Party5: | Scottish National Party |
| Popular Vote5: | 629,564 |
| Percentage5: | 21.5% |
| Swing5: | 7.4% |
| Seats Before5: | 3 |
| Seats5: | 3 |
A general election was held in the United Kingdom on 9 April 1992 and all 72 seats in Scotland were contested. Two Scottish seats changed parties during the election; Aberdeen South and Kincardine and Deeside. Both seats were gained by the Conservatives. Kincardine and Deeside had been lost by the Conservatives to the Liberal Democrats in the last by-election of the parliament.[1]
The results of the 1992 election were largely unexpected, and nowhere more-so than in Scotland. Conservative results in Scottish local elections since the 1987 election had been largely poor, and the Conservatives had sunk as low as 15% in a March 1990 opinion poll by the Herald. Polling throughout the campaign had suggested little movement towards the Conservatives, and instead support for Scottish independence appeared to be rising. Local polls in individual constituencies had even suggested that the Secretary of State for Scotland Ian Lang would lose his seat of Galloway and Upper Nithsdale to the SNP and that Under-Secretary of State for Scotland Michael Forsyth would lose Stirling to Labour.[1]
Most surprising was the difference between the Scottish results and the wider UK results. The tendency had historically been for larger swings to Labour in Scotland where there was a national swing to Labour. In 1992 the wider swing in the UK was from the Conservatives to Labour, yet Scotland saw a swing from Labour to the Conservatives.[1] This was the last election until 2017 in which the Conservatives were the second largest party in Scotland (in the election held 25 years later, the Scottish Conservatives were the beneficiaries of a much larger swing against the trend elsewhere in the UK).
List of MPs for constituencies in Scotland (1992–1997)
| Party | Seats | Seats change | Votes | % | % change | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 49 | 1 | 1,142,911 | 39.0 | 3.4 | |||
| 11 | 1 | 751,950 | 25.6 | 1.6 | |||
| 9 | 383,856 | 13.1 | 6.1 | ||||
| 3 | 629,564 | 21.5 | 7.4 | ||||
| 0 | 7,967 | 0.3 | |||||
| 0 | 15,450 | 0.5 | 0.2 | ||||
| Turnout | 2,931,698 | 75.5 | 0.4 | ||||