The NF made gains in the 1977 Greater London Council elections, where it contested all but one seat. Its 91 GLC candidates gained 120,000 votes, over twice the total that the party had accrued in the whole of England in 1974. In Inner London, it gained the third largest vote share. Its share of the vote in London had also increased, reflecting an average rise from 4.4% in the October 1974 general election to 5.3% in the 1977 GLC election; in some places the rise was far higher. It averaged over 10% of the vote in three boroughs: Hackney, Newham, and Tower Hamlets, challenging the Liberals' position as the third party in London. The rise in the NF's London vote between 1974 and 1977 can be explained in various ways. One possibility is that growing electoral support represented how growing numbers of working-class Londoners were turning to the NF as the party of protest against the Labour government's failure to stem urban decay. Alternately, the NF's actual voter base might not have significantly increase between 1974 and 1977, but rather their vote share increased due to a lower turnout from other parties' voters. The NF's vote share began to stagnate in the local elections from 1977 and 1978. By 1977, the party's electoral support had peaked, and by the London Borough Council elections of 1978, its support "had very noticeably declined" in the city, something that was then reflected in local elections elsewhere in the UK.