1965 Leyton by-election

1965 Leyton by-election

← 1964 21 January 1965 1966 →
Constituency of Leyton
Turnout	57.7%
First party Second party Third party   Lib Candidate Ronald Buxton Patrick Gordon Walker Alistair H. Mackay Party Conservative Labour Liberal Popular vote 16,544 16,339 5,382 Percentage 42.9% 42.4% 14.0% Swing 9.4% 8.0% 2.2%
MP before election Reginald Sorensen Labour Elected MP Ronald Buxton Conservative

The 1965 Leyton by-election was a parliamentary by-election held on 21 January 1965 for the House of Commons constituency of Leyton in east London.

The seat had become vacant when the constituency's long-serving Labour Member of Parliament (MP), Reginald Sorensen, was made a life peer on 15 December 1964. An MP for over thirty years, his elevation to the peerage was intended to create a vacancy in a safe seat for the Foreign Secretary, Patrick Gordon Walker, who had been defeated in a shock result in the 1964 general election in his Smethwick constituency.

The result of the contest was not as planned: the Conservative Party candidate, Ronald Buxton, won with a majority of 205 votes, a swing from Labour of 8.7%. Gordon-Walker resigned as Foreign Secretary but regained the seat for Labour at the 1966 general election.

Votes

See also

• Leyton (UK Parliament constituency)
• Leyton
• List of United Kingdom by-elections (1950–1979)

References

• British Parliamentary by-elections: Leyton
• UK General Elections since 1832 Archived 2 July 2009 at the Wayback Machine
• Leigh Rayment's Peerage Pages ^{[self-published source] [better source needed]}