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By the 1880s it was widely recognised that voters in counties deserved the same political rights as those in the boroughs. This led to the 1884 Parliamentary Reform Act:

• the Act created a uniform franchise for both county and borough
• it applied to the United Kingdom as a whole
• it enfranchised a significant number of voters
• approximately two in three men now had the vote - almost 18 per cent of the total population
• however, plural voting was permitted (whereby a man could have more than one vote in certain circumstances)
• Women still did not have the vote
• MPS were still not given a salary. This made it difficult for men without independent means to become an MP