It was the first election in South Africa with a whites-only electorate, following the removal of the Cape Qualified Franchise in the late 1950s, after the resolution of the coloured vote constitutional crisis.

[1] The third term of the (white) MPs elected to represent black voters, from special electoral districts in Cape Province under the Representation of Natives Act 1936, expired on 30 June 1954.

The coloured voters lost the right to participate in general roll elections and were given four (white) representative members in Parliament.

Eventually legislation to change the size and electoral system for the Senate was enacted, which the courts accepted as enabling the 1951 Act to be validated by the constitutionally required margin.

[2] The Coloured Representative Members were elected, for the first time, on 3 April 1958, for a term expiring with the next dissolution of Parliament.

The South Africa Act 1909 had provided for a delimitation commission to define the boundaries for each electoral division, for general roll voters in the four provinces.

The general election, for 156 seats in the 12th Union Parliament, was the first in South African history when only voters classified as white took part.

The drop in support is largely attributed to the party leader Alex Hepple's growing outspokenness in opposition to apartheid and his co-operation with the African National Congress, positions which were not supported at the time by white workers who were the bulk of the Labour Party's electorate.