British Party System Research Articles

Ein weiterer Erdrutschsieg: Die britischen Parlamentswahlen vom 4. Juli 2024

After 14 years in opposition, Labour is back in power . A governing party in conflict with itself, big and unresolved economic problems, and a Scottish National Party that managed to steer itself in a political cul-de-sac made change possible . The size of change is not least the result of the first-past-the-post electoral system and its disproportionality effects . These allowed the Labour Party to take 63 .4 per cent of the seats in Parliament with only 33 .7 per cent of votes . The British party system is more divided than ever before . The Liberal Democrats experienced a political comeback as alternative to the Conservatives, and the Green party made progress as an alternative to Labour . Reform UK, the party of the right-wing populist Nigel Farage, came third in the electoral contest with regard to vote totals . The lower turnout is surprising given the broader and stronger competition among parties . It reflects widespread disillusion among voters concerning politics, and the distancing of a growing number of people from the political process .

What Would the British Party System Look Like under Proportional Representation?

AbstractBritish debates over electoral reform are invariably debates about what party system would emerge. While there is agreement that proportional representation (PR) would boost the size of existing smaller parties, there is no consensus over the emergence and prospering of new parties. The main weakness in the British debate concerns the types of governments that would form under PR. Some believe the Liberal Democrats would be perennial kingmakers. Others suggest that a ‘progressive alliance’ on the centre‐left would sweep all before it. This article considers the experience of west European multiparty systems since the 1980s and argues that party system fragmentation and the growth of non‐centrist parties would characterise Britain under PR. Moreover, the pattern of overlapping centrist coalitions seen in Germany and Benelux would be unlikely to emerge in Britain. Instead, a two‐bloc system, common in Scandinavia and southern Europe, would most likely develop.

The dynamics of changes in British political parties and the party system in the 21st century

The article is devoted to the dynamics of changes in British political parties and the British party system in the 21st century. The main objective of the analysis is to verify the hypothesis that the configuration of the party system of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland over the last quarter of a century was conditioned by changes in the ideological, programmatic and organisational spheres, as well as the model of party leadership in British political parties. This hypothesis will be verified by various research methods, including document content analysis, data analysis and comparative analysis. The authors analyse changes in the programme and organisational dimensions, as well as the evolution of the leadership model in British political parties. They also indicate the extent, to which such changes influence the transformation of the British party system – both in the electoral and parliamentary arenas.

The Modern British Party System. By Paul Webb and Tim Bale. New York: Oxford University Press, 2021. 416p. $115.00 cloth, $40.00 paper.

The Modern British Party System. By Paul Webb and Tim Bale. New York: Oxford University Press, 2021. 416p. $115.00 cloth, $40.00 paper.

“Tomfoolery” That Deserves Our Attention (Playlets)

“Tomfoolery” That Deserves Our Attention (Playlets)

Governance, politics and political economy – England’s questions after Brexit

ABSTRACT In the aftermath of Brexit there is frequent reference to an ascendant ‘English nationalism’ in British politics. This article challenges the conceptual and empirical adequacy of this epithet. It provides a rather different characterization of developing trends within English national consciousness, and the main dynamics animating it in recent years, pointing to the emergence of a number of distinct English ‘imaginaries’ at both popular and elite levels. It examines how England became an object of concern in debates about devolution to other parts of the UK, and in the context of attempts by successive governments to develop a functional model of subnational government within England. It also explores the implications of the contrasting understandings of English devolution that prevail within the British party system.

Dissent and rebellion in the House of Commons: a social network analysis of Brexit-related divisions in the 57th Parliament

The British party system is known for its discipline and cohesion, but it remains wedged on one issue: European integration. We offer a methodology using social network analysis that considers the individual interactions of MPs in the voting process. Using public Parliamentary records, we scraped votes of individual MPs in the 57th parliament (June 2017 to April 2019), computed pairwise similarity scores and calculated rebellion metrics based on eigenvector centralities. Comparing the networks of Brexit- and non-Brexit divisions, our methodology was able to detect a significant difference in eurosceptic behaviour for the former, and using a rebellion metric we predicted how MPs would vote in a forthcoming Brexit deal with over 90% accuracy.

Clear Blue Water? The 2019 Party Manifestos

AbstractBrexit may have dominated the 2019 general election campaign, but it wasn't the only issue at stake. The political parties published wide‐ranging manifestos, while their appeals also rested on established ideological reputations. This article analyses the content of the 2019 manifestos and uses the latest Manifesto Project estimates to explore ideological movement in the British party system. It reports the changing policy emphases in Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat manifestos and the ideological positions of these and other political parties in 2019. It further presents new measures for parties’ positions on the cosmopolitan‐traditionalist dimension of party competition, an increasingly important divide in electoral politics. The article shows that the ideological gap between the Conservatives and Labour opened up further in 2019. It also shows how the parties’ distinctive ideological profiles, as well as their positions on Brexit, gave voters a clearer choice than in recent elections.

Twenty Years of Devolution in Scotland: the End of a British Party System?

The geographical divides that characterised the outcome of the June 2016 European referendum, with a Remain majority in Scotland and Northern Ireland and a Leave majority in England and in Wales, are symptomatic of the increasingly divergent electoral results of the last two decades in each of the four UK nations. While the roots of divergent political patterns across the UK may lay in the 1960s and 1970s with the emergence of the nationalist parties in Scotland and Wales and the long decline of the Conservatives north of the border, we shall contend that the introduction of devolution to Scotland and Wales in 1999 had the most considerable impact on British party politics.

Marching to the Left? Programmatic Competition and the 2017 Party Manifestos

AbstractThis article analyses the content of the 2017 general election manifestos, and introduces the latest estimates from the Manifesto Project to explore recent ideological movements in the British party system. It reports the changing policy emphases in Conservative and Labour manifestos and the ideological positions of the major political parties in 2017. It finds that Theresa May's party produced its most left‐wing manifesto since 1964, and that Jeremy Corbyn's party produced its most left‐wing manifesto since 1992 and the election before the advent of New Labour. The article also finds that the ideological space between the Conservatives and Labour opened up in 2017, and that Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionists published the most right‐wing manifesto.

British Party System Change. The Impact of Changing Voters, Devolution and Cabinet Coalition on the Two-Party System

British Party System Change. The Impact of Changing Voters, Devolution and Cabinet Coalition on the Two-Party System

Brexit, the tides and Canute: the fracturing politics of the British state

ABSTRACTThe result and aftermath of the referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union has generated considerable attention, not just among observers of British politics. Even if some of wider context that shaped the referendum is far from unique to the UK, the road to Brexit is a product of distinct pathologies of the British state and politics that will introduce its own distinctive ways of doing policy and politics: With a state already under strain, a politics that is increasingly divided, and its people(s) discontented, the challenges confronting Britain’s ways of governing are substantial. This essay considers three analytical lenses, or ‘mega-trends’, through which to view the decision of the Cameron government to call the referendum: (1) the electoral politics perspective that focuses on the populist-nationalist turn and fragmentation of the British party system, (2) the dominant policy paradigm perspective that points to a silent crisis of the neoliberal policy consensus that had governed Britain since the 1970s, and (3) the referendum as a side-effect of both depoliticisation and the politics of the regulatory state. Based on these perspectives, we reflect on the potential implications of Brexit for the future of the British state and liberal democracy.

Should unionists support PR? Electoral systems, party systems and territorial integration in the United Kingdom

Conventional wisdom has it that the British first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP) fosters an all-British two-party system which in turn provides territorial integration to a multi-national British state. While the first relationship has been significantly weakened since the early 1970s, the second one lost much of its compelling power at the General Election of 2015. However, as this analysis shows, the integrating function of the British party system has been a myth for quite some time. The FPTP system may have helped to concentrate votes in the two major British parties, yet it has also heavily exaggerated the existing electoral divergence between different parts of the country and has thus contributed considerably to the disintegration of the UK polity. As this effect becomes increasingly obvious, strong commitment to unionist ideology might be expected to induce corresponding support for electoral reform in both the Conservative and the Labour Party. The territorial concentration of their MPs (in part a consequence of this exaggeration), though, means that career self-interest points in the opposite direction.

What Kind of Party Is the UK Independence Party? The Future of the Extreme Right in Britain or Just Another Tory Party?

This article aims to further our understanding of the nature of the UK Independence Party. Our approach differs from much of the existing literature on party families, by analysing public attitudes towards the UK Independence Party in comparison with other parties. Multidimensional unfolding is utilised to map UK Independence Party’s place in the British party system, Tobit regressions are employed to compare UK Independence Party’s support base with that of the British National Party and the Conservatives and, finally, latent class analysis is used to assess the heterogeneity in UK Independence Party’s support base. The conclusion is that, with increasing success, the UK Independence Party has established itself as the only viable electoral option for British extreme right voters while also making serious inroads into more traditional conservative circles, who are Eurosceptic but not extreme. This bridging position between the mainstream and the extreme makes the UK Independence Party distinctive from other British parties and has parallels with the positions of anti-establishment, European Union sceptical and immigration-critical parties elsewhere in Europe.

Britain: Divorced from the EU and Disunited at Home?

The Brexit referendum brought the regional and social divisions of the UK in the open. It put unresolved constitutional questions on the agenda and had a deep impact on the British party system. The referendum campaign provided room for protest, fake news and scare mongering. In electoral terms, the referendum gave a voice to the left-behinds. It is open to question whether the high hopes the Brexiteers created for a newly "independent" Britain will find support in the development of the country's external relations, but also with regard to the unity of the UK.

A Transformed Political Landscape

The 23 June 2016 referendum on Britain’s EU membership exposed deep fractures within the British party system. Products of global political, cultural, and financial trends, these fractures have diminished the power of the U.K. government and of other Western democracies alike. Though the EU’s role in these changes was ambiguous, it became a scapegoat for them, and on the initiative of Conservative Party’s David Cameron, the June up-or-down vote on EU membership was held. But instead of resolving the parties’ problems, the referendum has left the U.K. party structure more skewed than ever. Though it is not yet clear that all of their leaders understand this, the Conservative and Labour parties are in deep crisis, and so is British democracy.

The Thatcher myth

Margaret Thatcher’s death in April 2013 reawakened the political controversies around her premiership and the adulation and antipathy which she had always attracted. To many of her supporters and opponents she became a mythical figure. The ways in which this myth was constructed are analysed, and how they tend to exaggerate agency and downplay the role of contingency and the structural contexts in which Thatcher operated. Three aspects of her legacy are discussed, first her role in redirecting foreign policy and external relations, particularly with reference to the Falklands War, the revival of Atlanticism and the turn away from Europe; second her role in reversing economic decline, and how far her policies were responsible for irreversible social and economic change; and third her impact on the British party system and the conduct of British politics, particularly her role in changing both the Labour party and the Conservatives.

The Declining Representativeness of the British Party System, and Why it Matters

The Declining Representativeness of the British Party System, and Why it Matters

The Declining Representativeness of the British Party System, and Why it Matters

In a recent article, Michael Laver has explained ‘Why Vote-Seeking Parties May Make Voters Miserable’. His model shows that, while ideological convergence may boost congruence between governments and the median voter, it can reduce congruence between the party system and the electorate as a whole. Specifically, convergence can increase the mean distance between voters and their nearest party. In this article we show that this captures the reality of today's British party system. Policy scale placements in British Election Studies from 1987 to 2010 confirm that the pronounced convergence during the past decade has left the Conservatives and Labour closer together than would be optimal in terms of minimising the policy distance between the average voter and the nearest major party. We go on to demonstrate that this comes at a cost. Respondents who perceive themselves as further away from one of the major parties in the system tend to score lower on satisfaction with democracy. In short, vote-seeking parties have left the British party system less representative of the ideological diversity in the electorate, and thus made at least some British voters miserable.

The Worst of All Worlds? Electoral Reform and Britain's 2009 European Elections

At the 2009 European elections, Britain again elected its MEPs under the ‘closed list’ system of proportional representation (PR)—the third time it had done so since 1999. This article looks at claims that these elections vindicated PR by producing a ‘fairer’ relationship between the parties' share of votes and their share of seats, a truer reflection of diverse political allegiance in modern Britain, and (thanks to multi‐member constituencies) a more efficient and sensitive system for representing voters. However, the article will also inspect the idea that the case for electoral reform was gravely weakened by the 2009 Euro elections. It will recall how PR again failed to boost turnout, again employed a method of counting that most voters did not understand, and again involved constituencies too large for meaningful representation. Furthermore, it will recall that PR allowed the election of two MEPs from the far‐right British National Party. (With just 6% of votes, it is unlikely that the BNP would have secured seats under Britain's traditional electoral system.) The article will argue that, as a result, PR has had a centrifugal effect on the British party system and, potentially, a polarising effect on our political culture. Consequently, the article will assert that, owing to the success of the BNP in 2009, arguments about PR for Westminster have been ‘ideologically neutralised’. The article will thus suggest that we can now take a more objective view of hung Parliaments and coalitions (the likely effects of PR at general elections), free from the assumption that they entrench centrist governments and progressive politics.