British Party Research Articles

Perceived negativity in British general election communications

British parties – and their candidates – frequently engage in the use of negative messaging. While previous studies shed light on the frequency and source of such messages, we know less about how negative messages are received. In this research note, we present the results of a pilot survey designed investigate perceptions of the different types of messages that political elites use to discuss their opponents. Our preliminary results suggest that there is significant variation in the perceived negativity of messages, with messages referencing specific individuals being more likely to be perceived to be negative.

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 .

Эволюция отношения ведущих британских политических партий к расширению состава ЕС (1997–2010 гг.)

In the presented article, the author consistently analyzed the approaches of the key British political parties (Conservative and Labor) in relation to the initiative to expand the EU during the period of the Labor Party’s rule (1997–2010). The stages of transformation of British politicians’ approaches to this issue were highlighted, the reasons for the change in their position were analyzed, and the consequences that demonstrated the diver-gence of the viewpoint of some political forces with the opinion of the electorate were revealed. Conclusion dwells upon the fact that the change in the political assessment of the EU enlargement by the key British parties became a significant component in the complex of reasons for the defeat of the Labor Party in the 2010 par-liamentary elections, and also contributed to the development and consistent steps of the Conservative Party in the direction of protecting the rights of British citizens as part of European cooperation.

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.

Parliamentarians versus party members? Leadership selection systems in the British Conservative and Labour parties

British parties have pioneered the use of ‘one-member, one-vote’ ballots to select their leaders. However, the elections of Jeremy Corbyn (Labour) and Liz Truss (Conservative) prompted calls to return leadership selection to parliamentarians. Critics claim that party members are non-centrist and liable to impose unsuitable leaders on MPs. This weakens the cohesion of parliamentary parties, undermining the functioning of Britain’s majoritarian democracy. This article assesses the major parties’ leader-selection systems. It goes beyond existing research by identifying and applying four evaluative criteria for selection institutions: legitimacy, parliamentary acceptability, leader-eviction and timeliness. It shows that most criticisms of one-member, one-vote are overstated because the latter is heavily mediated by ex-ante and/or ex-post parliamentary controls, for example, nomination thresholds and confidence votes. One-member, one-vote generally produces leaders acceptable to MPs; ‘unsuitable’ ones typically arise when the parliamentary controls fail. However, key institutional weaknesses are identified: legitimacy in the Conservatives’ system and leader-eviction in Labour’s.

Eurooptimism and Euroscepticism on the Example of the British Labour Party, Liberal Democrats and Scottish National Party

In this article, the three British parties in terms of their attitudes towards the EU are analysed. British parties are not homogenous with no single position on Europe being dominant. Nevertheless, there has been a rise of Euroscepticism across all political parties regardless of their affiliation in the recent years. Brexit referendum has become a ‘point of no return’ since no political force in Britain has questioned British exit from the EU and its results. The debate has switched to the conditions on which the post-Brexit UK collaborates with the EU but there is no discussion whether Britain needs to return to the EU. It is a question of whether British interests have been taken into account and how close the relationship with the Europeans should be. The research reflects gradual evolution of the three British parties (Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats, and the Scottish National Party) and their attitudes towards European integration. It is shown that the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats had a U-turn on key policies such as free movement of people or joining the Eurozone whereas the Scottish National Party reinvented itself and became a proponent of the European integration (with some reservations). The author tries to answer the question of whether the above parties could have prevented Brexit.

Social media discourse and voting decisions influence: sentiment analysis in tweets during an electoral period

In a time where social media is fundamental for any political campaign and to share a message with an electoral audience, this study searches for a conclusion of the actual persuasion capacity of social media in the electors when they need to decide whom to vote for as their next government. For this, it compares the sentiment that Social Media users demonstrated during an electoral period with the actual results of those elections. For this analysis, it was used, as a case study, tweets mentioning the two major English parties, Conservative and Labor, their respective candidates for the position of prime minister, and terms that identified their political campaign during the electoral period of the General Elections of the United Kingdom that occurred on December 12, 2019. Data were collected using R. The treatment and analysis were done with R and RapidMiner. Results show that tweets’ sentiment is not a reliable election results predictor. Additionally, results also show that it is impossible to state that social media impacts voting decisions. At least not from the polarity of the sentiment of opinions on social media.

“Tomfoolery” That Deserves Our Attention (Playlets)

“Tomfoolery” That Deserves Our Attention (Playlets)

Chosen Keywords in the Discourse of British Politicians on Brexit: A Pragmatic Analysis

The goal of the article was to select and analyze keywords concerning central Brexit-related themes found in chosen speeches delivered in the years 2013-2021 by politicians from three British parties: the Conservative Party, the Labour Party, and the Brexit Party. The decision regarding Brexit had been made as a result of the referendum in which a small majority of British citizens had voted for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to leave the EU. Via a pragmatic analysis conducted with the help of the program AntConc on a sample of one hundred transcripts of chosen speeches from sources such as the official government website and media websites, four keywords which played a crucial role in the discourse on Brexit were chosen, namely leave, remain, referendum, and country. They appeared in the speeches of members of all of the three above mentioned parties. In their rhetorical and persuasive speeches delivered before the referendum, the politicians tried to convince the British society to support Brexit or to be against it, and in their speeches given after the referendum, they accented, e.g., that the decision made by the majority of the voters needs to be honored.

Prawn Cocktails and Cold Shoulders: Labour, the Conservatives and the City of London since the 1990s

AbstractThis article charts surprising departures in how the two major British parties have cultivated and regulated financial services since the 1990s. During this time, Labour leaderships have consistently sought to accommodate the City, while the Conservatives have defied it at important junctures. This pattern of behaviour challenges the assumption in classical business power theory that Conservatives should be more attuned to finance's preferences than Labour. The article attributes this to the parties’ distinct understandings of the interplay between the sector's business power and their own statecraft, which derive from substantially varying political links with the City. Labour's repeated charm offensives are prompted by a sensitivity to disinvestment and perpetually weak political ties. The Conservatives’ approach is less sensitive to the sector's economic weight and is underwritten by enduring political ties. The article examines these differences over time and with special reference to two episodes: post‐financial crisis banking reforms and Brexit.

The Goromani incident: seeking spoils from opportunistic theft in the Official collection from early colonial British New Guinea

Material confiscated in 1898 by William MacGregor and his officers from abandoned houses after a punitive raid on the cluster of villages at Goromani, Upper Vanapa River in early colonial British New Guinea offers insights into the kinds of objects that might have been obtained for the Official ethnographic collection through negative reciprocity. In addition to ceremonial finery and valuable items stowed away in bags, drums dressed for ceremonies prior to raiding, stone artefacts, and arrows were confiscated after the raid by the British party. An analysis of handwriting on the labels written for the objects at the time of their collection identifies the personal choices for plunder of MacGregor and the officers who assisted him. This small collection also highlights classes of ethnographic objects that were highly favoured by British colonisers during the late nineteenth century. By comparing the Marind-Anim and Goromani assemblages with the entire Official collection, attributes of material acquired within the context of opportunistic theft are highlighted. Based on these cases, it might be possible to identify additional material within the Official collection, and potentially others from colonial British New Guinea, that were scavenged expediently following violent confrontations. The findings could also assist indigenous groups and museum curators in recognising material from early ethnographic collections from British New Guinea that might be considered for repatriation.

ИСТОРИЧЕСКИЕ И СОЦИАЛЬНЫЕ ИСТОКИ БРИТАНСКОГО ЕВРОСКЕПТИЦИЗМА

This article explores the reasons why the United Kingdom joined the process of the European integration in 1973 and factors of Euroscepticism that led to Brexit in 2016. The article shows that the main reason to join the process of the European integration was the desire to maximize economic gains for the country. However, very soon the question of deepening of the European integration became the ‘hostage’ of intraparty fights in the two main British parties. Irrespective of the party affiliation, the British Prime Ministers preferred to keep control over their party and expand their electoral base by appealing to Eurosceptics rather than deepening political integration with mainland Europe. In other words, the foreign policy and especially relations with Europe depended very much on internal politics and party mood. Even the decision to hold a referendum on leaving European Union has been the outcome of intraparty struggle within the Conservative Party

Association between cigarette smoking status and voting intentions: Cross sectional surveys in England 2015-2020

Background and aimsCigarette smoking takes place within a cultural and social context. Political views and practices are an important part of that context. To gain a better understanding of smoking, it may be helpful to understand its association with voting patterns as an expression of the political views and practices of the population who smoke. This study aimed to assess the association between cigarette smoking and voting intentions and to examine how far any association can be explained by sociodemographic factors and alcohol use.MethodsPooled monthly representative repeat cross-sectional household surveys of adults (16+) in England (N = 55,482) between 2015 and 2020 were used to assess the association between cigarette smoking status and voting intentions, and whether this was accounted for by age, occupational grade, gender, region and alcohol use. Voting intention was measured by asking ‘How would you vote if there were a General Election tomorrow?’ Respondents chose from a list of the major English political parties or indicated their intention not to vote.ResultsIn adjusted multinomial regression, compared with intending to vote Conservative (majority party of government during the period), being undecided (aOR1.22 [1.13-1.33] <0.001), intending to vote Labour (aOR1.27 [1.16-1.36] <0.001), to vote “Other” (aOR1.54 [1.37-1.72] <0.001), or not to vote (aOR1.93 [1.77-2.11] <0.001) was associated with higher odds of current relative to never smoking rates. Intending to vote for the Liberal Democrats was associated with a significant lower odds of current smoking prevalence (aOR0.80 [0.70-0.91] <0.001) compared with intending to vote Conservative.ConclusionsControlling for a range of other factors, current as compared with never-smokers appear more likely to intend not to vote, to be undecided, to vote for Labour or a non-mainstream party, and less likely to vote for the Liberal Democrats, compared with the Conservative party.

The Strategic Use of Visuals on Facebook: A Multimodal Analysis of Images and Audience Reactions During the Campaign for the 2019 UK General Election

The article studies the images that British political parties posted on Facebook during the 2019 UK elections. Verbal and nonverbal resources in the visuals were examined to look at the following strategies: Broadcasting Policy, Mobilization, Attacking Opponents, and Image Management. Overall, attacking opponents was the most common strategy for verbal and nonverbal resources. Attacks against opponents were also associated with a higher number of likes and shares. A substantial portion of text in the images was used to talk about policies, in particular by the two largest parties, the Conservative Party and Labour Party. Visuals posted on Facebook by the Labour Party generated the highest number of audience reactions. Specific differences among political parties were also analyzed and discussed.

Constructing the Ideology of the Right-Wing Radical Party in Modern United Kingdom: The Case of the United Kingdom Independence Party

This article examines the update of ideological foundations of the largest right-wing radical party in Britain (and in the whole of Europe) - the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP). The subject of the research is the partys programmatic text, Manifesto for Brexit and Beyond, a document that is not limited to the discussion of Brexit alone. This document appeared at the end of 2019 and, despite the frequent change of leadership in the party during 2020, remained the ideological foundation of the organization after Brexit. The aim of the article is to analyze how the ideological base of the right-wing British radical party was formed in the socio-political realities of the initial period after the states exit from the European Union. The paper presents a discursive analysis of the main ideological document of one of UKIP, as well as identifies the ideological positions of British right-wing radicals at the present stage. Since the research is mainly practice-oriented, the main results are presented the data obtained through discourse analysis using to the method of R. Wodak. The data testify the changes that have been taking place in the discourse of the extreme right in Britain in recent years, as well as the prospects for its evolution in the coming years after Brexit. Studying UKIPs discourse, the author concludes that it forms depending on the political, social and cultural conditions that prevail in modern British society, as well as on the general European context. The article also shows how a modern right-wing radical party constructs its discourse using the most painful issues for the society within the framework of political struggle.

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.

The membership of parties abroad: a case study of the UK

Against a long trend decline in the membership of political parties in Western democracies, there has been an unexpected surge in the UK since 2015. Interestingly, this phenomenon has also been observed amongst British expatriates, despite their historically very low levels of engagement. Our paper explores this development using a multi-methods approach to investigate its impact across the three main parties, comparing the relative importance of supply-side and demand-side factors in each case. We show that the creation and development of British parties abroad are the result of two contrasting dynamics: a top-down one, which gives legitimacy and structure and in some cases, resources, and a bottom-up one, which gives purpose but also networks. Our survey of British expatriate party members reveals a diversity of triggers and motivations for membership, making an original contribution to the wider literature on party membership and on the political engagement of emigrants.

Shopping for a better deal? Party switching among grassroots members in Britain

ABSTRACT People who join political parties are motivated primarily, although not exclusively, by ideological impulses. So, given the often considerable ideological differences between parties, one might presume that very few those who later leave one party would be keen to join another. However, using a comprehensive 2019 survey of British party members, we not only identify several factors associated with switching parties (being especially socially liberal or socially authoritarian; being a Brexiteer; being a campaign activist; working in non-manual occupation; having a university degree; being a man rather than a woman; being older rather than younger; and being a current member of one of the country’s smaller political parties), but we also show, first, the flows between parties and, second, that party switching at the grassroots is far more common than many imagine. Even so, and notwithstanding the fact that switching impacts on different parties in different ways, it is not sufficient to support oft-voiced claims of widespread entryism into either of Britain’s two main parties – at least on the sort of scale that might account for Labour’s shift to the liberal-left or the Conservatives’ shift to supporting a hard Brexit.