Party System Change in Britain: Multi-Party Politics in a Multi-Level Polity
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Party System Change in Britain: Multi-Party Politics in a Multi-Level Polity Philip Lynch Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK. E-mail: [email protected]
The classic two-party system of early post-war Britain has given way to a more complex picture in which distinctive party systems operate at national, regional, local and European level. Most, if not all, of these are multi-party systems. Only the simple plurality electoral system insulates Labour and the Conservatives from the improved performances of the Liberal Democrats and minor parties. Results in elections to the devolved assemblies in 2007 confirmed the reality of multi-party politics away from Westminster as the Scottish Nationalists formed a minority government in Edinburgh, a Plaid Cymru–Labour coalition took power in Wales and four parties made up the Northern Ireland Executive. In England, minor parties fielded record numbers of candidates in the 2007 local elections. British Politics (2007) 2, 323–346. doi:10.1057/palgrave.bp.4200071 Keywords: party system; two-party system; multi-party system
Introduction Britain’s two-party system, a defining characteristic of the UK polity in the 1950s and the 1960s, is in failing health but there remains some reluctance among political scientists to sign the death certificate. Support for the two main parties, the Conservatives and Labour, is in retreat, falling to 67% of the popular vote at the 2005 general election, the lowest figure since 1918. The Liberal Democrats secured the highest number of seats won by a third party for more than 70 years and minor parties together passed 10% of the vote. These performances are part of a 30-year trend, which indicates that a twoparty system no longer operates in the nationwide electoral arena. However, there remain flickers of life in the two-party system, largely because the simple plurality electoral system acts as an artificial life support machine providing Labour and to a lesser extent the Conservatives with some protection from the advance of multi-party politics. A more nuanced approach is required, one that recognises that the UK does not have a single-party system but multiple party systems, most (if not all) of which are clearly operating at different levels. The distinction between
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different political arenas (electoral, legislative and executive) and levels of jurisdiction (local, regional, national and European) made by Paul Webb (2000) is a useful one for mapping the decline of the two-party system. Only at the national level does the two-party system cling to life — although this claim requires the exclusion of Northern Ireland, where multi-party politics is well established, from the national level. Two-party predominance is most obvious in the executive branch, where only the Conservatives and Labour have held office since 1945. Bipolar politics also remains robust in the House of Commons where the simple plurality electoral system has preve
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