Six candidates were nominated. The list below is set out in descending order of the number of votes received at the by-election.
1. Representing the Labour Party was George Howarth. He was Chief Executive of the Wales Trades Union Congress Centre in Cardiff, and had been deputy leader of Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council from 1982 to 1983.
He has been a Labour Member of Parliament since the 1986 by-election, originally for Knowsley North until 1997, then for its replacement Knowsley North and Sefton East, and since 2010 for Knowsley.
2. The Liberal Party candidate, representing the SDP-Liberal Alliance, was Rosie Cooper. She had been a member of Liverpool City Council since 1973, and worked as a junior executive at Littlewoods. Cooper had contested the seat of Liverpool Garston at the 1983 general election. She represented West Lancashire from 2005 to 2022, having joined the Labour Party in 1999.
3. The Conservative candidate was Roger Brown, a barrister born in 1951. He was a member of Bury Metropolitan Borough Council from 1982 until 1986.
4. David Hallsworth stood for election as a candidate of the Revolutionary Communist Party led by Frank Furedi.
5. George Weiss, a frequent election candidate, was an Independent using the ballot paper label "Rainbow Alliance Captain Rainbows Universal Party".
6. Robert Cory was an Independent candidate.
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Note a Change is calculated from the SDP candidate who represented the SDP-Liberal Alliance at the 1983 general election.
- Britain Votes/Europe Votes By-Election Supplement 1983-, compiled and edited by F.W.S. Craig (Parliamentary Research Services 1985)