Political parties Flashcards
Political parties, elections and referendums Act 2000:
Imposed an overall limit on party spending in election campaigns to £30,000 per constituency. It also established limits for elections too devolved bodies and the European Parliament and required parties that declare all donations over £5000 to the Electoral Commission.
Cranbourne Money:
Funds paid to opposition parties in the house of lords to help them scrutinise the government.
Liberal Democrats - £1,688,000 (From Short Money, Cranbourne Money and Policy Development Grants).
Short money
funds paid to opposition parties that win at least two seats or one seat and 150,000 votes.
Liberal Democrats - £1,688,000 (From Short Money, Cranbourne Money and Policy Development Grants).
2016 Trade Union Act.
Conservatives trying to limit labour funding- argument for state funding as it dhows how the government waste time and money.
The liberal democrats
In 1981, the Liberals received a boost from the break off of the centre-left Social Democratic Party from the Labour Party. In 1988 they merged and in 2005 they had 62 seats.
Clegg and the liberal democrats
In the 2010 election, their manifesto included making the first £10,000 people earn tax free, scrapping university tuition fees for undergraduate students, changing the Trident nuclear missiles system and backing constitutional reform.
However the coalition lead them to be associated with austerity policies, u-turned on their promise to not increase undergraduate university tuition fees and saw a more proportional electoral system rejected by the electorate in the 2011 Alternative Vote referendum.
Lib dems since the coalition
The Lib Dems were punished in the 2015 election, in which they won just 7.9% of the vote and 8 seats.
Since 2019, the Lib Dems have been led by Ed Davey.
Lib Dem current policies
- They oppose tax rises
- They also strongly back green causes and green investments and say that the Conservatives can’t be trusted on climate change.
- The Lib Dems continue to support constitutional reform, including reforming the House of Lords and introducing proportional representation.
SNP
- The SNP’s majority victory in 2011 led to the Westminster government agreeing to a Scottish Independence referendum that was held in 2014. Since 2016 they have been on some kind of power in Scotland winning 49 seats in Westminster in 2019.
SNP Policy
They opposed austerity and argued in 2017 and 2019 that it should be ended.
○ In 2023, the Scottish Government increased the higher and top rates of income
tax, so that both rates are now 2% higher than in the rest of the UK.
○ They introduced free university tuition fees in Scotland.
They are pro-Europe and want Scotland to rejoin the European Union
UKIP
Emerged in 1991 but didn’t gain attention till Farage.
- In the 2014 European elections, UKIP gained a total of 24 MEPs, making it the largest UK party in the European Parliament. It won 3.9 million votes in the 2015 General Election, though this returned just 1 MP.
○ It’s growing support put pressure on the Conservative Party to commit to
holding a referendum on leaving the EU, though,
Green party
In their 2019 manifesto, they pledged a combined investment of over £100B a year in the ‘Green New Deal’ to tackle climate change, supported getting to net-zero emissions by 2030,In 2019, they supported a Universal Basic Income.
How FPTP limits minor parties
Core vote of the two main parties decreasing
from over 80% in 1979 to just 66% in 2015, which has not been reflected in seats.
FPTP uneven distribution
In 2015, UKIP won 3.88 million votes but just one seat, whilst in 2019 the Lib Dems won just 11 seats with 3.7 million votes.
Significance of the SNP
○ In 2015, the SNP won 56 seats with just 4.7% of the vote, whilst in 2019 they won 48 seats with just 3.9% of the vote.
