Lisbon Treaty is signed

Creation of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC)

Creation of the European Economic Community (EEC)

The UK, Denmark and Ireland join the agreement

Maastricht Treaty comes into effect, creating the European Union

Euro coins and banknotes are adopted

UK votes to leave the European Union

Theresa May triggers Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty

Snap election. May loses majority

1st Brexit deadline

Boris Johnson is the new Prime Minister

Parliament suspended

2nd Brexit deadline

Snap election. Tories win the majority

Current Brexit deadline

End of transition period

European Union Referendum Act 2015

February 18, 2016

March 08, 2016

March 24, 2016

May 22, 2016

May 30, 2016

June 03, 2019

June 07, 2016

June 10, 2016

June 17, 2016

June 20, 2016

June 23, 2016

July 13, 2016

January 17, 2017

March 29, 2017

April 19, 2017

June 8, 2017

June 09, 2017

June 19, 2017

December 09, 2017

February 28, 2018

March 01, 2018

July 06, 2018

November 14, 2018

November 25, 2018

December 17, 2018

January 15, 2019

January 16, 2019

February 15, 2019

March 29, 2019

April 06, 2019

April 10, 2019

May 23, 2019

May 24, 2019

July 24, 2019

August 27, 2019

August 29, 2019

September 25, 2019

October 02, 2019

October 17, 2019

October 19, 2019

October 20, 2019

October 29, 2019

October 31, 2019

November 20, 2019

December 12, 2019

December 13, 2019

October 10, 2012

February 20, 2016

Brexit Party

UK Independence Party

Labour Party

Conservative Party

Liberal Democrats

Brexit
European Union
Brexit
Newspaper covers
British Prime-Ministers
Media and Analyses
Parties
0
0
Sun 05
Mon 06
Tue 07
Wed 08
Thu 09
Fri 10
Sat 11
October 2025

1983 election

09/06/1983View on timeline

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_United_Kingdom_general_election#/media/File:Michael_Foot_(1981).j...

Michael Foot(Labour) and Margaret Thatcher (Conservatives), the two main names in the 1983 general e...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_United_Kingdom_general_election#/media/File:Margaret_Thatcher_(19...

Image source — Michael Foot

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_United_Kingdom_general_election#/media/File:Margaret_Thatcher_(19...

Image source — Margaret Thatcher

1983 v 2017: how Labour's manifestos compare

It is an irony of history that one of the little-remembered but key elements of Labour’s 1983 manifesto, infamously dubbed the longest suicide note in history, was a pledge that Britain would leave the European Economic Community within five years.

Fast-forward to 2017 and Labour’s leaked draft manifesto, with its vows to renationalise the railways and Royal Mail, has already been attacked as “dragging Britain back to the 1970s” and predictably dubbed by the Tories as “the new suicide note”.

The 1983 manifesto, The New Hope for Britain, was the product of the party’s labyrinthine internal processes. It included promises to cancel the Trident programme and to refuse to deploy US nuclear cruise missiles, to abolish the House of Lords, and to bring about “a fundamental and irreversible shift in the balance of power and wealth in favour of working people and their families”.

Some of its policies, controversial at the time, look commonplace today, such as action to improve women’s rights, to tackle racial discrimination, to improve open government and tackle pollution.

But at the centre of the manifesto, at a time when Britain was dominated by the spectre of mass unemployment, lay an £11bn “emergency action programme” that included a massive increase in public investment in housing and transport and “mass programme of construction to build our way out of the slump”.

A five-year national plan would be drawn up by a Labour government, employers and the unions, with a national investment bank at its heart. The privatisations of Margaret Thatcher’s first term, covering the steel, shipbuilding and aerospace industries, would be taken back into public ownership.

That manifesto, unlike its predecessors, sailed through the clause V shadow cabinet/national executive meeting under Michael Foot’s leadership without the usual trade-off between the left and right wings of the party.

Despite the grave reservations of senior Labour figures, including the then deputy leader, Denis Healey, it went on to become a key part of the mythology around Thatcher’s Falklands factor-fuelled 1983 landslide victory.

— The Guardian

Read more:

1983 v 2017: how Labour's manifestos compare. The Guardian.

Read the full 1983 Labour manifesto, The New Hope for Britain:

The New Hope for Britain — Labour's 1983 Manifesto.

More links

Why the Labour party lost in 1983. The Guardian.

1983: the biggest myth in Labour Party history. Red Pepper.

See the election results:General Election Results, 9 June 1983. House of Commons Report (PDF)

0 comments

Comment
No comments avaliable.

Author

Info

Published in 30/01/2020

Updated in 19/02/2021

All events in the topic Brexit:


24/06/2016 • 08:30:00Prime-minister David Cameron resigns
06/07/2018UK white paper on Brexit
29/03/20191st Brexit deadline1st Brexit deadline
23/05/201926/05/2019European parliament elections
24/05/2019Theresa May resigns
28/08/2019Parliament suspendedParliament suspended
31/10/20192nd Brexit deadline2nd Brexit deadline
06/11/2019 • 00:01:00Parliament is dissolved
31/01/2020Current Brexit deadlineCurrent Brexit deadline
31/12/2020End of transition periodEnd of transition period
09/06/19831983 election1983 election
01/01/2015 (Circa)European Union Referendum Act 2015European Union Referendum Act 2015