List of UK minor party and independent MPs elected

This is a list of members of the United Kingdom House of Commons who were elected as an independent or as a member of a minor political party.

Excluded are the Speaker, who traditionally stands for re-election without party affiliation, and MPs who were elected from a major party but then defected during a parliamentary term.

Minor party and independent MPs in Great Britain have been rare in recent times - there have been only ten elected since 1950.

British MPs

In Britain, MP are listed where they were elected as an independent, or for any party except the Conservative Party, the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats and its forerunners, the Liberal Unionist Party, the National Liberal parties, the National Labour Party, the Scottish National Party or Plaid Cymru.

1950 - present

Northern Irish MPs

MPs from the Democratic Unionist Party, Nationalist Party, Sinn Féin, Social Democratic and Labour Party or Ulster Unionist Party, including those Ulster Unionists who stood as part of the Conservative Party, are excluded, as are those identified as Nationalist Party MPs. While these four are all currently regarded as major parties by the Electoral Commission, it should be remembered that each of these parties has at times held only a single seat, and for many years Sinn Féin was a banned organisation and did not contest elections.

:(b) = by-election

#Kilfedder was an Ulster Unionist MP for Belfast West 1964-1966 and for North Down until 1977 when he left the party in opposition to Enoch Powell's proposals for integration over devolution. Kilfedder sat as an Independent Unionist until 1980, then formed the Ulster Popular Unionist Party which primarily served as a vehicle for him and his supporters.
# Carron was elected on the issue of the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike, standing as a "Anti H-Block/Proxy Political Prisoner" after new laws banned the nomination of any of the hunger strikers. He did not take his seat in the House of Commons. From 1982 onwards he was standing as a Sinn Féin in elections, including his unsuccessful defence of this seat in the 1983 general election.
#Sands was the most prominent of the Irish Hunger Strikers and incarcareted at HM Prison Maze at the time of his election, though he was ideologically opposed to taking his seat in the Commons.
#Maguire was the product of an electoral pact amongst Irish Nationalists. Although in the tradition of the prior Unity pact, he did not use the label (though is sometimes listed as a Unity MP). He did take his seat in the House of Commons, though only attended rarely.
#Dunlop was the Vanguard Progressive Unionist Party MP for Mid Ulster from February 1974, until the party split over leader William Craig's proposals for power-sharing with the Social Democratic and Labour Party in 1976. One faction, to which Dunlop belonged, formed the United Ulster Unionist Party, under which banner he stood and sat for the constituency until standing down at the 1983 election.
#Craig and Bradford were the Vanguard Progressive Unionist Party MPs for Belfast East & Belfast South respectively from February 1974 and stayed in Vanguard following the 1976 party split, then merging the party into the Ulster Unionists in February 1978.
#In 1971 Paisley merged the Protestant Unionist Party into the new Democratic Unionist Party.
#Fitt was elected as a Republican Labour Party in 1966 and 1970, but later in the latter year he left the party and co-founded the Social Democratic and Labour Party, for which he sat as an MP until 1980, when he left that party and sat in the Commons as an Independent Socialist until his defeat in 1983.
#Little was elected as an official Ulster Unionist in the 1939 Down by-election. Prior to the 1945 general election he resigned from the party in protest at being subject to a reselection due to the retirement of Viscount Castlereagh, the other official Unionist MP, and held his seat as an Independent Ulster Unionist. He died in 1946.

Irish MPs

All MPs are listed except those from the Ulster Unionist Party (affiliated to the Conservative Party during this period), the Nationalist Party, Sinn Féin, the Liberal Party, the Liberal Unionist Party and the Home Rule candidates.

ources

#cite news|title=BBC News article "Why AM Law took on his own party"|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/4402577.stm|author=David Williams|date=2005-04-03
#cite news|title=Usenet post "Independent MPs" listing all MPs not elected from major parties since 1918|url=http://groups.google.com/group/uk.politics.parliament/msg/179a911bd8070c75|author=David Boothroyd|date=1997-03-13
#Ibid
#Ibid
#Ibid
#Ibid

References

* [http://www.geocities.com/by_elections/ British Parliamentary By-Elections since 1945]
* [http://www.leighrayment.com/commons.htm List of MPs since 1660]
*F. W. S. Craig, "British Parliamentary Election Statistics 1832-1987"