The Common Market and the Social Contract (1970–79)

Abstract

In the five years after the election defeat of June 1970, the Labour Party managed to avoid the fate that had befallen it after its earlier spell of power in the 1940s, of remaining in the wilderness for more than a decade. But it returned to office in March 1974 only as a minority government, and in the second election of October of that year it improved its position no more than marginally, so as to have an overall majority of just three seats—soon to be whittled away by lost by-elections and defections to a minority again.