Scottish Labour Party (1976) MP for South Ayrshire, John Robertson, then MP for Paisley and Alex Neil, the UK Labour Party's senior Scottish researcher. The split came just before the resignation of Harold Wilson as prime minister and party leader and the election of James Callaghan as his successor. By 1979 the Scottish Labour Party had lost its seats in the House of Commons, and in 1981 it was formally disbanded. Almost immediately the SLP became the focus for entryism from the International Marxist Group (IMG), and at the party's first congress in October 1976 the IMG was expelled, along with a number of
Labour Party (UK) strongly opposed and the Labour Party officially repudiated the new National government. It expelled MacDonald and his supporters and made Henderson the leader of the main Labour party. Henderson led it into the general election on 27 October against the three-party National coalition. It was a disaster for Labour, which was reduced to a small minority of 52 seats. The Conservative dominated National Government, led by MacDonald won the largest landslide in British political history. In 1931 Labour campaigned on opposition to public spending cuts, but found it difficult to defend the record of the party's former government and the