 The Conservative Party, which was opposed to devolution, won the subsequent general election; the Scotland Act was repealed in June 1979.In November 1981, Cunningham resigned from the Labour Party and sat as an independent Labour MP, before becoming one of the later ex-Labour defectors to the recently founded Social Democratic Party in June 1982.Cunningham lost his seat by just 363 votes (1%) at the 1983 general election to Labour candidate Chris Smith.