For over 100 years UK politics has been dominated by the Conservative and Labour parties with
the only real challenger being the Liberals
This has been challenged more recently by:
issue parties, such as the Green Party, UKIP and the BREXIT party
Nationalist parties following devolution, such as the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru
Parties from Northern Ireland since the rise of the DUP, who has a Confidence and Supply
agreement with the Conservative Government 2017-2019, and Sinn Fein
Aims to influence behaviour of major parties, expand ideological boundaries and offer more
choice to the electorate
Impact of Minor Parties in Elections
Historically, almost all votes were for Labour or the Conservatives
Combined, they received 96.8% of the vote in 1951 and 89.4% of the vote in 1970
However, there has been a period of change:
2005 ~ 67.6%
2010 ~ 65.1%
2015 ~ 67.3%
This led political scientists to suggest that the UK had become a multi-party system (and consideration of
the Liberal Democrats as one of the major parties)
However, 2017 saw a move back towards two party dominance:
2017 ~ 82.4%
2019 ~ 75.7% (due to the collapse of the Labour vote; the Conservative vote remained largely
unchanged)
FPTP traditionally damaged the chances of the Liberal Democrats and similarly impacts the
Green party and UKIP
However, FPTP has helped the SNP whose vote is geographically concentrated:
There are 59 seats in Scotland
2015 ~ SNP won 56 seats with 1.45 million votes, whereas the Liberal Democrats won 8 seats
with 2.42 million votes, the Greens with 1 seat and 1.11 million votes and UKIP also with 1 seat
but 3.88 million votes.
2019 ~ SNP won 48 seats with 1.24 million votes, whereas the Liberal Democrats won 11 seats
with 3.7 million votes, the Greens with 1 seat and 0.87 million votes and the BREXIT party with 0
seats and 0.64 million votes
Impact of Minor Parties on UK Politics
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