Political Parties Flashcards
What is a Political Parties?
a group of like-minded individuals who seek to realise their shared goals by fielding candidates at elections and thereby securing election to public office.
What do most mainstream parties aim to achieve?
Most mainstream UK parties ultimately aim to emerge victorious at a general election, however distant that goal might appear at a given point in time. In this respect, parties differ significantly from pressure groups, for while some pressure groups employ electoral candidacy as a means of raising public awareness of their chosen cause, they generally have little interest in, or prospect of, being elected to office.
Mandate
The right of the governing party to pursue the policies it sets out in its general election manifesto.
Manifesto
A pre-election policy document in which a party sets out a series of policy pledges and legislative proposals that it plans to enact if returned to office.
Sailsbury Doctrine
The convention that the House of Lords does not block or try to wreck legislation that was promised in the manifesto of the governing party.
What does a political party use its manifesto for?
A political party uses its manifesto to set out the policies it would seek to pass into law if elected to office, and so the party that is returned
to power at Westminster in the wake of a general election is said to have earned an electoral mandate — the right to implement its stated policies. This is because popular support for the winning party at the ballot box is taken, rightly or wrongly, as support for the manifesto that the party presented to voters during the election campaign.
Labour Party 1997 manifesto
In its 1997 general election manifesto, the Labour Party promised to remove the rights of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords. The party’s landslide victory in the election therefore handed the party a strong mandate to fulfil this first stage of Lords reform, and it duly delivered with the House of Lords Act 1999.
Manifesto - in focus
A pre-election policy document in which a party sets out a series of policy pledges and legislative proposals that it plans to enact if returned to office. The latter years of the twentieth century saw party leaders taking direct control of the process of drafting the election manifesto. In 1992, the Conservative leader John Major famously declared that the party’s manifesto was ‘all me’.
Mandate - in focus
The right of the governing party to pursue the policies it sets out in its general election manifesto. The mandate gives the governing party the authority to pursue its stated policies, without the need to go back to voters for further approval — such as through a referendum. Crucially, the mandate does not require the government to deliver on its manifesto promises or prevent it from drafting proposals that were not included in its manifesto.
Does the concept of an electoral mandate make sense? NO
- The low turnout at recent general elections means that the winning party can hardly claim to have secured a convincing mandate.
- Coalition governments such as that seen in the wake of the 2010 general election mean that two or more parties must agree a compromise programme for which no single party has a mandate.
- Most voters pay little attention to party manifestos, whether in full or digested form. Voting behaviour is more about long-term factors or personalities than it is about policy detail.
- The concept of the mandate is flawed because it is impossible for voters to cast a ballot for or against a given party on the basis of a single policy.
Does the concept of an electoral mandate make sense? YES
- The franchise is widely held and there is a high level of individual voter registration.
- The first-past-the-post electoral system usually results in a single-party government, so it follows that the victors should have the right to implement their stated policies.
- Each party’s manifesto is readily available to voters ahead of polling day, both in print and electronic form.
- Digested summaries of the main policies of each party are disseminated by the mainstream media. Televised leaders’ debates at the last two general elections have seen the leaders of the parties questioned on their main policies.
Five main roles of political parties
- providing representation
- encouraging political engagement and facilitating political participation
- engaging in political recruitment
- formulating policy
- providing stable government
Providing representation
Traditionally, parties were said to represent the views of their members. This was certainly true in an age of mass-membership parties, when parties and voters were clearly divided along class lines. Partisan and class dealignment, accompanied by the rise of centrist ‘catch-all’ parties, can be said to have undermined this primary role.
Political engagement and participation
By making the wider citizenry aware of the issues of the day, parties perform an educative function that, by its very nature, encourages political engagement. Parties further promote political participation by encouraging citizens to engage with the democratic process and giving them the opportunity to exercise power within their chosen party. The quality of participation afforded to members is shaped largely by the extent to which political parties are themselves internally democratic.
Political recruitment
Parties assess the qualities of those seeking election to public office, casting aside those who are, for whatever reason, considered unsuitable. Parties also give those who will ultimately become the nation’s leaders an opportunity to serve a form of political apprenticeship at a local level before ‘graduating’ to high office.
Policy formulation
Parties discuss and develop policy proposals before presenting them to voters in a single coherent programme (their manifesto). It is argued that this process is likely to result in a more considered, joined-up style of government than that which might emerge in the absence of political parties.
Stable Government
Without parties, it is argued, the House of Commons would simply be a gathering of individuals, driven by their personal goals and political ambitions. Parties present the voters with a clear choice, while also providing order following the general election — by allowing a single party to form a government and secure the safe passage of its legislative proposals through the Commons.
Politcal parties vs Pressure groups
Political parties:
- Political parties tend to offer a broad portfolio of policies, informed by a guiding ideology.
- The main UK political parties have open membership structures and are therefore inclusive.
- Political parties contest elections with a view to securing control of governmental power.
- The main UK parties are highly organised and offer their members an input into key decisions through formalised rules and procedures.
Pressure Groups:
- Pressure groups generally pursue a narrower cause or sectional interest.
- Many pressure groups — particularly sectional groups — are more exclusive in their membership.
- Those pressure groups that field candidates in elections generally do so simply as a means
of raising their own profile — or to encourage candidates representing the mainstream parties to adjust their policies for fear of losing votes.
- Even the larger, more established pressure groups are often dominated by a small leading clique; few pressure groups display high levels of internal democracy.
Types of political parties
- Mainstream parties
- Minority or ‘niche’ parties (nationalist and single-issue parties)
Mainstream parties
In the modern era, UK politics has been dominated by three main national political parties: the Conservative Party, which emerged from the Tory group within parliament in the mid-nineteenth century; the Labour Party, formed by trade unions and socialist organisations at the start of the twentieth century; and the Liberal Democrats, which came into being as a result of the merger between the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in 1988.
Nationalist or ‘niche’ parties
Nationalist parties look to nurture the shared cultural identity and language of those indigenous to a given geographical area — whether a ‘nation’, as in the case of the Scottish National Party (SNP), or a region, as in the case of Mebyon Kernow (The Party for Cornwall). While some nationalist parties campaign for full independence for their region or nation (e.g. the SNP), others may have more modest goals (e.g. Plaid Cymru in Wales). Although always much smaller than Plaid Cymru or the SNP, the British National Party (BNP) differs from most other nationalist parties in that it campaigns in support of the way of life and values that it claims are common to all indigenous UK peoples. However, having achieved some electoral success in the early part of the twenty-first century, the party had been reduced to a single local councillor and just 500 members by 2016.
§Single-issue parties
Recent years have seen a rise in the number of single-issue parties contesting elections in the UK. In some cases, these parties offer a wide-ranging programme of policies rooted in a particular ideological perspective (e.g. the Green Party). In other cases, they campaign on a particular issue (e.g. UKIP on the European Union), or even a specific policy (e.g. the ProLife Alliance on abortion). Recent elections have also seen the rise of local single-issue parties such as the Independent Kidderminster Hospital and Health Concern Party, whose candidate
Dr Richard Taylor won the Wyre Forest constituency at the 2001 and 2005 general elections. In many cases, such single-issue or ideological parties blur the boundary between political parties and pressure groups, as their primary goal is to raise awareness of a particular issue as opposed to winning an election and/or securing power. UKIP can be seen as a case in point.
Dominant-Party system
Where a number of parties exist but only one holds government power, e.g. in Japan under the Liberal Democratic-Party between 1955 and 1993. Some argue that the UK party system has, at times, resembled a dominant-party system — with the Conservatives in office 1979–97 and Labour in power 1997–2010.
Multiparty system
Where many parties compete for power and the government consists of a series of coalitions formed by different combinations of parties, e.g. in Italy between 1945 and 1993.
Single-Party system
Where one party dominates, bans other parties and exercises total control over candidacy at elections — where elections occur at all, e.g. in Nazi Germany or the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea).
Two-party system
Where two fairly equally matched parties compete for power at elections and others have little realistic chance of breaking their duopoly.
What system does Britain traditionally have
Two-party system
Party systems throught the times
While there have been times when a period of domination by a single party has led onlookers to herald the emergence of a dominant- party system, the UK has never witnessed a single-party system. Similarly, although the rise of the Liberal Democrats and a range of other smaller parties in the early part of the twenty-first century led some to suggest that the UK was morphing into a multiparty system, most still regard it as conforming broadly to the two- party model.
UKIP after BREXIT
- In 2016, Paul Nuttall was elected leader of the UK Independence Party, replacing Nigel Farage. The 39-year- old Member of the European Parliament, who served as UKIP’s deputy leader for 6 years, won 62.6% of support among party members.
- He promised to ‘put the great back into Britain’ and force the government to ‘give us a real Brexit’. It was UKIP’s second leadership election in a year, after previous winner Diane James quit after 18 days in the role. Mr Farage acted as interim leader while the second leadership race took place.
- In his acceptance speech, Mr Nuttall said: ‘The country needs a strong UKIP more than ever before. If UKIP is to be an electoral force, there will be an impetus on [the Prime Minister] Theresa May, and her government, to give us a real Brexit.’ He added: ‘I want to replace the Labour Party and make UKIP the patriotic voice of working people … speaking the language of ordinary working people. We’re going to move into the areas the Labour Party has neglected. We will be focusing on the issues that
really matter to working-class people on doorsteps — immigration, crime, defence, foreign aid, ensuring that British people are put to the top of the queue in the job market’
Does the UK now have a multiparty system? YES
- In the 2015 general election, 13.5% of UK voters (and 61% of Scottish voters) backed parties other than the ‘big two’.
- In some parts of the UK, such as Scotland, there is genuine multiparty competition for elected office.
- Although parties such as UKIP, the Green Party and the BNP have struggled to secure parliamentary representation at Westminster, they have achieved success in second-order elections.
- Any party that was able to mobilise non-voters would stand a chance of winning the election — in the 2015 general election, that was 33.8% of registered voters.
Does the UK now have a multiparty system? NO
- The Labour and Conservative Parties are the only parties that have a realistic chance of forming a government or being the senior partner in a coalition at Westminster.
- Even in 2015, Labour and the Conservatives secured 67.2% of the popular vote (up 2.1% from 2010), winning 86.5% of the 650 seats contested.
- The success of parties such as the BNP at second- order elections has proved fleeting. The Green Party has failed to add to its single Commons seat. UKIP was widely seen as a spent force by the end of 2016.
- Of the parties that contested seats across mainland Britain in 2015, the Liberal Democrats (in third place) finished with 22.5% of the vote and 224 seats behind Labour (in second place).
Political spectrum
A device by which different political standpoints can be mapped across one axis or more, as a way of demonstrating their ideological position in relation to one another.
Three main political parties
- Conservative party
- Labour
- SNP
Conservatism
A loose ideology favouring a pragmatic approach to dealing with problems, while seeking to preserve the status quo. Some argue that conservatism is, in fact, not an ideology at all because it looks to work with, and improve upon, what exists already, as opposed to building from the ground up from a more ideological standpoint.
Monetarism
An economic theory which advocates controlling the money supply as a means of keeping inflation in check.
Neo-liberalism
A political ideology closely related to classical liberalism. Neo-liberals stress the importance of the free market, individual rights and limited government. In the UK context, neo-liberalism is closely associated with Thatcherism.
Paternalist conservatism
Where power and authority are held centrally but the state acts benevolently and cares for the neediest. Paternalism is said to be a key characteristic of traditional one-nation conservatism.
Before the Great Reform act of 1832
UK parties existed not as mass- membership organisations with formal structures outside of parliament, but as groups of like-minded individuals within the legislature. These groups were bound together by shared ideals, friendship or family ties. With electoral reform came the need to organise in order to mobilise the growing electorate. It was at this point that UK political parties as we know them today began to emerge.
The Conservative Party
The Conservative Party emerged from the Tory Party in the 1830s, with many dating its birth to Robert Peel’s Tamworth Manifesto in 1834. In the twentieth century, the party was in office (either alone or in coalition) for a total of 67 years and enjoyed two extended periods in office:
- 1951–64 under Winston Churchill, Anthony Eden, Harold Macmillan and Alec Douglas-Home
- 1979–97 under Margaret Thatcher and then John Major
One-nation conservatism
For most of the twentieth century, the Conservative Party was truly conservative in ideology: that is, rooted in pragmatism and a belief in gradual improvements founded on experience and existing institutions. This was a form of collectivist or paternalist conservatism which favoured pluralism and social inclusion and held that, while authority should be centralised, the state should be benevolent and care for the neediest.
The proponents of this form of conservatism, now commonly referred to as ‘one-nation Tories’, were committed to:
- slow, gradual change — ‘evolution’, not ‘revolution’
- a Keynesian mixed economy — with significant state intervention,
where necessary
- support for a universal welfare state
- internationalism and increasing European integration
Thatcherism
The late 1970s and early 1980s saw the rise of a new form of liberal or libertarian conservatism on both sides of the Atlantic. Dubbed the ‘New Right’, this movement combined a belief in monetarism, free market economics and deregulation (an approach commonly referred to as neo-liberalism) with a more orthodox conservative approach in the sphere of social policy, such as support for the traditional
family unit and more traditional views on sexual orientation. The US president Ronald Reagan (1981–89) and UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher (1979–90) were key figures in this movement — the latter to such an extent that this broad approach has become known simply as Thatcherism in the UK.
Thatcherism in the UK
The advent of Thatcherism marked the death of the postwar consensus and the rise of a more adversarial politics. Supporters of this approach, known as Thatcherites, favoured the importance of the individual over the needs of society as a whole. Thatcherism offered a radical agenda including policies such as:
- deregulation in the field of business
- privatisation of publicly- owned industries
- statutory limits on the power of trade unions
- a smaller state (‘rolling back the frontiers of the state’) and more limited state intervention in the economy
- a greater emphasis on national sovereignty
- more limited state welfare provision (a lower ‘safety net’)
Thatcher referred to those who were not prepared to sign up to this agenda, in many cases the old one-nation Tories, as ‘wets’. Committed Thatcherites were referred to as ‘dries’, with Thatcher’s most loyal acolytes dubbed ‘ultra dry’.
Adversarial politics (or ‘yah- boo’ politics)
The instinctive antagonism between the two main Westminster parties. The term was used by Professor S. E. Finer and commonly applied to UK politics from the 1970s.
Postwar consensus
The broad agreement between the Labour and Conservative Parties over domestic and foreign policy that emerged after the Second World War. The consensus saw the parties cooperating over the creation of the welfare state and the adoption of a Keynesian economic policy. The postwar consensus began to break down in the 1970s and was said to have ended with the more ideological, adversarial approach that accompanied Thatcherism.
Thatcherism
An ideological approach combining a free- market, neo-liberal economic policy with a more orthodox conservative social policy in areas such as the family and law and order. Thatcherism was the dominant Conservative Party ideology of the 1980s and 1990s, and was closely associated with the ideas of Sir Keith Joseph and right-wing think-tanks such as the Adam Smith Institute.
Intra-party squabbles
The factional infighting that came to the fore as a result of this shift in direction under Thatcher led to formal challenges to her leadership of the party in 1989 (Anthony Meyer) and 1990 (Michael Heseltine). Though the latter
led to Thatcher’s resignation in November 1990, the leaders who followed on from her — John Major, William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith, Michael Howard and David Cameron — often struggled to command the full confidence of the entire parliamentary party due to internal party factions and personal rivalries. In the 1990s, Philip Norton identified seven broad and overlapping factions within the parliamentary Conservative Party. By 2013, Richard Kelly was able to identify three broad ideological strands
One-nation conservatism vs Thatcherism
One-nation Conservatism:
- It takes a pragmatic approach.
- It advocates incremental change.
- It is paternalistic.
- It favours a mixed economy.
Thatcherism:
- It is dogmatic.
- It advocates radical change.
- It is individualistic.
- It favours a free-market economy.
The Conservatives under David Cameron
- David Cameron’s election as party leader in 2006, in the wake of three successive general election defeats for the Conservatives, was widely seen as analogous to the kind of epiphany that the Labour Party had experienced a decade earlier under Tony Blair. Indeed, Cameron was himself widely referred to as the ‘heir to Blair’.
- Cameron initially sought to lead the Conservatives away from those areas of policy over which the party was deeply divided (e.g. Europe) and towards those where it could gain electoral advantage (e.g. the environment). He recognised the extent to which the party had come to be regarded as unelectable — or the ‘nasty party’, as Theresa May had put it back in 2002 — and set about ‘detoxifying’ the Conservative brand. The desire was reflected in the Conservatives’ 2010 general election pledge to fix ‘broken Britain’.
Locating David Cameron and his supporters on the political spectrum
Some dubbed Cameron’s Conservatives the ‘New Tories’ or, as Cameron himself put it on at least one occasion, ‘liberal Conservatives’. Back in 2008, Richard Kelly offered three possible early judgements on Cameron’s conservatism:
- first, that it represented a ‘flagrant
capitulation to New Labour’
- second, that it should be seen as a ‘subtle
continuation of Thatcherism’
- third, that it amounted to little more than
‘shameless opportunism’
While there were elements of truth in all three of these judgements, it was the last that presented the most enduring obstacle. Cameron’s promise of an in/out referendum on the EU ahead of the 2015 general election was certainly seen as evidence of such opportunism, with the party internally divided on the issue and facing a challenge from UKIP in its electoral heartlands.
The susbstance of Policy
Although David Cameron’s Conservative Party issued a swathe of policy proposals in the run-up to the 2010 general election, the party’s manifesto favoured style over substance. For example, the early talk of replacing the Human Rights Act 1998 with a new UK Bill of Rights appeared without further elaboration in the party’s 2010 manifesto. Even in the wake of the 2010 general election, it remained unclear as to how Cameron intended to reconcile (or triangulate) his desire to adopt traditionally liberal positions on the environment and social welfare with his commitment to pursue the Thatcherite agenda of ‘rolling back the frontiers of the state’. Moreover, the need to keep the party’s Liberal Democrat coalition partners engaged made it difficult for the Conservatives to deliver even on those very few explicit promises that they had made in the run-up to the 2010 general election.
The 2015 general election and beyonf
- While the Conservatives in coalition (2010–15) could be forgiven for not delivering on some of their more radical policy pledges, it is perhaps more surprising that they did not make more substantive changes after being returned to office as a single-party government in 2015. The party had, after all, set out a number of significant proposals in its election manifesto this time around.
- The decision to schedule the EU referendum so early in the parliament clearly made it harder for cabinet colleagues to work together towards policy goals in a more conventional way. Cameron’s resignation as prime minister in the wake of that vote, and the need to establish a new government under his replacement, Theresa May, can also be seen to have limited the government’s ability to implement its programme.
- May’s first keynote speech as party leader at the Conservative Party conference in October 2016 certainly gave weight to the view that the government was going to be largely preoccupied by the task of preparing the path for Brexit. High on rhetoric and low on policy commitments, May’s speech did little to suggest that there would be significant policy initiatives in areas entirely unconnected to the UK’s efforts to disentangle itself from the EU. That speech aside, however, the early months of May’s premiership had seen some significant moves on the policy front.
Early policy initiatives under Theresa May
- Although the Conservative government was understandably preoccupied with the Brexit agenda in the wake of the decisive ‘Leave’ vote in the 2016 EU referendum, prime minister Theresa May did look to set out a different path in a number of significant areas.
- On the environment, May infuriated green campaigners by scrapping the Department for Energy and Climate Change, created only 8 years ago, while at the same time establishing two new government departments to negotiate the UK’s departure from the EU and make the
economy ‘Brexit-ready’: the Department for Exiting the European Union, under David Davis, and the Department for International Trade, under Liam Fox. - In regional government, May pledged that she would abandon George Osborne’s plans for directly elected mayors for city regions, once the 2017 Manchester and Liverpool mayoral elections were over. She also abandoned Osborne’s plans for a ‘northern powerhouse’ of jobs and investment to reduce the economic disparity between the north and the south.
- In education, May promised to allow all comprehensive schools to apply to become grammar schools, while also allowing existing grammar schools to expand. However, new grammar schools will be required to take a proportion of pupils from lower-income households
Social democracy
A political ideology that accepts the basic premise of capitalism while advocating a more equitable distribution of wealth along the lines favoured by all socialists.
Socialism
A political ideology advocating greater equality and the redistribution of wealth. Socialists are suspicious of capitalism. They favour greater government intervention, in both economic and social policy.
