UK Party Research Articles

Public understanding of Electoral Spending: Evaluating UK Transparency Mechanisms

ABSTRACT Transparency is core to the principles of electoral oversight. The disclosure of information is designed to allow voters, the media, academics, and civil society to hold political actors to account. However, in the context of evolving campaign practice occasioned by the rise of digital technologies, the effectiveness of transparency mechanisms needs to be consistently scrutinized (Electoral Commission. (2018). Digital campaigning: increasing transparency for voters. Electoral Commission.). In this paper we examine a lauded system of electoral transparency – the UK's electoral finance regime (Power, S. (2020). Party funding and corruption. Palgrave MacMillan) – and evaluate its effectiveness. Analysing a unique dataset of 22,720 separate items of expenditure and 5,770 invoices recording campaign spending at the 2019 UK general election, we review the sufficiency of the process and content of existing transparency disclosures. Our findings show significant deficits in the system of electoral transparency. We find that UK parties are not reporting data consistently, meaning that invoices are regularly uninformative, and that existing reporting categories are unable to capture the full spectrum of electoral activity. These findings are significant for understanding the requirements of an effective disclosure regime, but also for questioning the utility of the disclosures available to voters.

‘We Can’t Afford to be a Branch Office’: The Territorial Dynamics of the British Labour Party, 2015–2019

Abstract Despite having delivered devolution, the British Labour Party has faced significant challenges in adapting to, and competing effectively in, a multi-level political space. This article explores this dynamic in the context of a pivotal period of change (2015–2019), in which the party was led by Jeremy Corbyn, a political outsider, and when British politics was riven by Brexit. In this article we highlight the operation of a key strategic duality underlying the territorial politics pursued by both Scottish and Welsh Labour parties: an endemic and unresolved desire to seek greater autonomy from the UK party, on the one hand: and the preference to retain or gain influence at the centre of British politics, on the other. How these goals were pursued, and tensions between them managed by the territorial parties and their leaders, are central to an understanding of how the party handled the challenges created by devolution more broadly.

Standing Up for the Nations? Devolution and the Changing Territorial Role of Backbench MPs with Constituencies in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, 1992–2019

Abstract At UK general elections, parties and candidates standing in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales give prominence to pledges to act on behalf of those territories. This article examines how far and in what ways MPs with constituencies in those parts of the UK actually seek to give representation to these territorial units once elected. A typology of forms of substantive parliamentary representation of sub-state units such as these is outlined, and results of a content analysis of Commons contributions by backbench MPs between 1992 and 2019 are presented. It is found that MPs from the parts of the UK with devolved legislatures focus extensively on the sub-state territorial level and that these MPs have adapted their representational styles to the changed institutional context following devolution. These findings have important implications for how we think about the roles of MPs from Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales in the post-devolution context.

Bulldozing Brexit: the role of masculinity in UK party leaders’ campaign imagery in 2019 UK General Election

ABSTRACT Political science asks how women navigate gender on the campaign trail – do they run “as women” or do they exhibit more “masculine” behaviours to increase credibility. The role of masculinity in men’s campaigns has received less attention. Yet, men “play the gender card” too. This paper analyses the use of gender in the campaign imagery of the two male party leaders in the 2019 UK General Election campaign via an examination of their campaign tweets. It finds that the male leaders did, indeed, “play the man card”. Both leaders overwhelmingly used masculine visuals on Twitter during the campaign. Johnson demonstrated elements of “hypermasculinity” exaggerating his strength and dominance in images of traditional, working-class masculinity. Despite calls for more compassionate, read feminine, politics, Corbyn’s campaign remained located in masculine imagery through consistent displays of agency. This paper makes three main contributions to current understandings of gender and election campaigning. Firstly, it offers the beginnings of a framework of types of masculinity in campaigning. Secondly, it adds support to the thesis that men play the gender card, and that it can take different forms. Thirdly, it raises questions about the use of binary frameworks in studying gender’s role in campaigning.

Principle of Least Effort and Sentence Length in Public Speaking.

The analysis of sentence lengths in the inaugural speeches of US presidents and the annual speeches of UK party leaders is carried out. Transcripts of the speeches are used, rather than the oral production. It is discovered that the average sentence length in these speeches decreases linearly with time, with the slope of 0.13 ± 0.03 words/year. It is shown that among the analyzed distributions (log-normal, folded and half normal, Weibull, generalized Pareto, Rayleigh) the Weibull is the best distribution for describing sentence length. These two results can be considered a consequence of the principle of least effort. The connection of this principle with the well-known principles of maximum and minimum entropy production is discussed.

‘Since this is a Document of Record’: Collecting the Oral Histories of the Brexit Parliament

AbstractThis article brings together over thirty on‐the‐record interviews with politicians and political strategists at the centre of British politics during the Brexit gridlock. Prompting political elites to retell their oral histories allows us to begin to understand areas of institutional change and continuity, with the aim of beginning the process of ‘historicising’ Brexit. These interviews demonstrate three areas where the norms of the UK political system were tested and challenged between June 2017 and January 2020: attempts at sustained cross‐party activity in the House of Commons, efforts to rebalance legislative‐executive relations, and the temporary fluidity of the UK's party system. Boris Johnson's ultimate success during this period of (what is now) British political history provides a salutary lesson in the durability of majoritarianism within Westminster, even in the face of sustained challenge on multiple fronts.

Party expats? Mapping transnational party branches of French, German and UK parties

Today many parties interact with members and supporters outside their national borders. One way parties do so is by establishing transnational party branches. However so far, there is a lack of theoretical and empirical research exploring this transnational aspect of party activity. This paper provides a first insight into why parties develop transnational branches, and how it affects their organization. It argues that the development of party branches abroad differs across countries due to the incentives provided by the national legal framework on voting and donations from abroad. In turn, the role and functions of the transnational branches vary depending on this legal framework. Looking at the two transnational branches of the two mainstream parties in France, Germany and the United Kingdom, this paper first briefly outlines the different national legal frameworks and the scope and size of transnational party branches. It then focuses on how they are organized, their role and function, and how this shapes their relationship to their homeland party. This explorative research is mainly based on legal and secondary data. The paper finds that the parties studied differ substantially in location, number and membership size for their transnational branches. Furthermore, the organizational links and the control by the national party over transnational party branches is the highest where parties have the most to gain in terms of votes in national elections and donations.

UK Parties Abroad and The Paradox of the Anti-Brexit Backlash

An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.

Examining Political Parties’ Record on Refugees and Asylum Seekers in UK Party Manifestos 1964–2019: The Rise of Territorial Approaches to Welfare?

This study addresses a key lacuna by analyzing political parties’ formative policy record on refugees’ and asylum seekers’ welfare in party manifestos for state-wide and meso-elections in the UK, 1964–2019. The findings confirm relational contrasts in issue-prioritization and the framing of pledges – between parties and across polities. The wider significance of this lies in underlining the need to examine the formative, electoral phase of refugee and asylum-seeker policy-making; and showing how the move to a multi-level electoral system combines with regional party politics to drive the territorialization of RAS welfare in federal and union states.

“You’re important, Jeremy, but not that important”: Personalised responses and equivocation in political interviews

This study was an assessment of personalised equivocation in political interviews, namely, politicians’ responses to questions which, in lieu of an explicit reply, are directed personally at the interviewer. Twenty-six interviews with recent UK party leaders were analysed in terms of questions, replies, and personalisation. The majority of personalised responses contained elements of criticism, although over a quarter were more amicable. For the eight featured politicians, the use of such responses was adjudged to be more about individual communicative style than their position on the political spectrum. Only one politician did not respond in this manner, indicating a more widespread use of personalisation than was previously suggested. Furthermore, an evaluation of interviewer follow-ups showed its effectiveness as a diversionary tactic in the face of troublesome questions. In terms of the proportion of questions which receive a full reply, a general reply rate analysis highlighted how recent political leaders have changed little from their predecessors.

UK Parties Abroad and Expatriate Voters: The Brexit Backlash

Abstract Recent developments in British politics have foregrounded two issues of particular importance to Britons living overseas: their voting rights in the UK and Brexit. In light of this, the number of British expatriates registering to vote has risen sharply and provided an incentive to develop UK parties abroad. We, therefore, set out the history and organisational structures of the major British parties abroad, and report the results of a unique online survey of British expatriate citizens, which tests whether ‘Votes for Life’ and Brexit have significantly impacted on their political preferences. We find that latter has done so, but the former has not. In view of this, the historically embedded expectations of a general expatriate preference for the Conservative Party no longer apply to those based in EU countries. In the wake of Brexit, this group appears to have swung decisively against the party and turned towards Labour and the Liberal Democrats. This suggests that the likelihood of the current Conservative administration introducing legislation to extend expatriate Britons’ voting rights, as pledged in the Queen’s Speech of December 2019, is remote, raising existential questions for the future of UK parties abroad.

Партийные лидеры Великобритании конца XX – начала XXI века: Между идеологией и медийностью

Партийные лидеры Великобритании конца XX – начала XXI века: Между идеологией и медийностью

What Does the Politics of the Transhuman Do to Increase/Decrease Western Anxieties About Machines/Artificial Intelligence (AI) and What Does It Do to Further Trouble the Stable Liberal Subject of Western Political Theory?

The reasoning behind tackling the politics of the Transhuman in relation to the liberal self in this piece is quite simple; there is a significant gap in the literature when it comes to analyzing transhumanism in relation to canonical western ideas. The Transhuman today is an image gaining some traction within western society; academic or otherwise. It has inspired lengthy philosophical works such has Ben Goertzel’s (2010) A Cosmists Manifesto as well as the springing up of official political parties across Europe and The USA (Transhumanist UK Party n.d.; Transhumanist Party n.d.). Transhumanism has been/can be situated within several interconnected histories such as the history of Western Political Philosophy, the history of western scientific development and the history of machines in western popular culture. As we will see the politics of the Transhuman creates sites of both continuity and change within these histories. The core argument that this piece will draw out of its analysis is that the politics of the Transhuman has a Janus-like relationship with the liberal subject. Works of conscious transhumanist philosophy tend (with the occasional exception of Goertzel (2010: 49-52, 59-68, 257-259)) to reinforce liberal ideas about the self-whereas, through the creation of anxiety, the contact between transhumanist imagery and western pop-culture presents a strong challenge to liberal assumptions about the self. This juxtaposition, it will be suggested, stems from the simple fact that the politics of the Transhuman is definitionally trying to transform the self through the use of technology but has been born from conditions of western liberal capitalism which traps it to a certain degree within the norms of the liberal self.

Getting back in the DeLorean: modernization vs. anti-modernization in contemporary British politics

ABSTRACTThis article highlights a growing clash between mainstream modernizing and populist anti-modernizing forces in the UK. Whilst scholarship on UK party politics has, for the past three decades, focussed on processes of party modernization, little attention has been paid to the countervailing processes of resistance towards modernization. This contrasts with comparative studies, which show that throughout much of Europe modernization processes have worked to produce populist backlashes from anti-modernizing forces seeking to reassert various types of traditional values and practices. Drawing on the comparative literature on modernization, our argument here is that a similar populist backlash against modernization is occurring across the political spectrum in the UK and has been a factor in: the rise of nationalism associated with UKIP and the SNP; the 2016 BREXIT vote and the efforts of both Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and Conservative PM Theresa May to distance their parties from the legacies of their modernizing predecessors. Empirically, we show how this increasingly prevalent line of conflict is playing out in the UK, whilst theoretically we argue that a discourse theoretical approach can provide significant advantages over existing approaches for understanding the dynamic interplay between modernizing and anti-modernizing discourses.

Party Attachment in Great Britain: Five Decades of Dealignment

The 2015 election brought one of the largest changes to the UK party system that Britain has ever seen. But how did this play out at the individual level? Was there an unprecedentedly large shift in voters’ preferences? This note uses British Election Study Panels from 1966 to 2015 to look at the volatility of voters’ choices across elections. I find that the 2015 election was the latest part of a long-running trend of increasing individual level vote volatility. While this volatility was expressed in much larger aggregate changes than we have seen in previous elections, there has been steadily increasing vote churn below the surface.

Politics and Parenthood: An Examination of UK Party Leadership Elections

As women increasingly campaign for the highest political offices, this original content analysis study examines the extent to which gender and parenthood play a role in political leadership using British political party leadership elections as a case study. Competing hypotheses from the limited literature on politics and parenthood are examined. The article finds that family mentions have varied over time and contrary to some gender literature men’s family was at times of greater interest than women’s. Evidence is found for the politicisation of motherhood and a possible ‘maternal mandate’. In parallel, fatherhood was of increasing interest and the rise of the modern man can be seen. Yet, male candidates appear to have an ‘opt-out clause’ in any politicisation of fatherhood. Further questions about politics and parenthood begged by this article open future research avenues.

Data-Driven Campaigning in the 2015 United Kingdom General Election

While we know something of data-driven campaigning practices in the United States, we know much less about the role of data in other national contexts. The 2015 United Kingdom General Election offers an important case study of how such practices are evolving and being deployed in a different setting. This article draws on thirty-one in-depth interviews with political practitioners involved in the use of data for six major UK parties and electoral regulators. These interviews are employed to explore the perceived importance of data in contemporary British campaigns, to understand the data-based campaign techniques being used by UK parties, and to assess how data-driven practices are interacting with the preexisting institutional context of British politics. Going beyond the specifics of the UK case, this study raises questions about the comparative, theoretical, and normative dimensions of data-driven politics.

The UK's changing party system: The prospects for a party realignment at Westminster

The paper examines the main changes in the UK party system that have occurred in recent decades. It focuses on the decline of party identification and class-based voting, and the unintended consequences of decisions made by political elites. It analyses the fragmentation of contemporary UK political opinion and describes the emergence of a new set of ?political tribes? that cut across old left-right party loyalties, taking particular note of the growth of Authoritarian Populism sentiment. It concludes that a major realignment of the UK party system is already underway and that the changes set in train by past elite decisions and changing public perceptions are likely to continue.

Clinical Application of the UK Working Party's Criteria for the Diagnosis of Atopic Dermatitis in the Chinese Population by Age Group.

Background:Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a common inflammatory skin disease with an increasingly significant prevalence. The prevalence of AD depends greatly on how its diagnosis is done. The UK Working Party's diagnostic criteria for AD are simple and easy to apply without invasive laboratory tests. This study assessed the clinical utility of these criteria in China.Methods:Data were collected from 6208 patients at 31 tertiary hospitals in 13 Chinese provinces/municipalities from March 2014 to May 2014. The agreement between the UK diagnostic criteria and the clinical records for AD was assessed by Cohen's kappa.Results:The overall agreement between the UK diagnostic criteria and clinical diagnosis was fair (kappa = 0.40). A slightly better agreement was found in patients aged between 4 and 9 years (kappa = 0.48), while fair agreement was found in the group <4 years and the group ≥10 years (kappa = 0.27 and 0.39, respectively). Using the UK party's criteria as the standard, the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value of the clinical diagnosis of AD were 62.3%, 89.2%, 38.0%, and 95.7%, respectively.Conclusions:Our study indicates a modest ability among Chinese dermatologists to apply the UK Working Party's diagnostic criteria for AD, especially in patients aged <4 years and ≥10 years. Since there is no gold standard for AD diagnosis, it is important to determine how AD is identified when evaluating a diagnostic tool.

Rating the debates: The 2010 UK party leaders’ debates and political communication in the deliberative system

Leader debates have become a pre-eminent means of campaign communication in numerous countries and were introduced in the UK relatively recently. However, the quality of such communication is, to put it mildly, open to question. This article uses the discourse quality index (DQI) to assess the deliberative quality of the 2010 UK party leaders’ debates. When scrutinized in isolation, and viewed through the full prism of the DQI categories, the quality of discourse evidenced in the debates is a relatively poor reflection of mainstream idealizations of democratic deliberation. However, when the analysis is rehoused within the wider project of constructing a deliberative system in the UK, and is given a comparative institutional dimension, the epistemic value of the debates is revealed. The relatively high level of justification employed by the party leaders suggests that the debates are a valuable means for the mass communication of reasoned defenses of manifesto pledges to the public sphere, and that they are likely to have a significant educative effect. Moreover, we argue that sequencing such debates with representative deliberative fora will force elites to improve the deliberative quality of their communication and enhance the reflective capacity of the viewing public.