William Ewart Gladstone Liberal Marquess of Salisbury Conservative The 1886 United Kingdom general election took place from 1 to 27 July 1886, following the defeat of the Government of Ireland Bill 1886.

It resulted in a major reversal of the results of the 1885 election as the Conservatives, led by Lord Salisbury, were joined in an electoral pact with the breakaway Unionist wing of the Liberals led by Lord Hartington (later the Duke of Devonshire) and Joseph Chamberlain.

The new Liberal Unionist party elected 77 members and gave the Conservatives their parliamentary majority, but did not join them in a formal coalition.

William Ewart Gladstone's Liberals, who supported the Irish Home Rule movement, and their sometimes allies the Irish Parliamentary Party, led by Charles Stewart Parnell, were placed a distant second.

The political realignment resulting from the Liberal Unionist split also meant that between this election and the end of the Second World War, only one election (in 1906) would result in a party other than the Conservatives forming a majority government (though the Liberals, and later the Labour Party, would form minority governments with support from smaller parties).