Another flaw in the two party concept arises when parties which have not had a sufficient majority to have any real parliamentary power have been assisted by a smaller third party in order to remain in government. Whilst falling short of becoming true coalitions, these alliances have taken place down the years and should not be ignored when determining which type of system the UK possesses. When these arguments are taken into consideration, it cannot be said that the UK has a true two party system.
Some political commentators believe that the system is much closer to being dominant party. Between 1918 and the present day, the Conservative party has held power for 58 years, which equates to just over 69% of the time. This is a powerful counter argument to the idea that the two leading parties have had an equal share of the swings of the electoral pendulum. On the other hand, it can be shown that Conservative dominance was not entirely down to their own superiority but due to a number of factors particularly the workings of the simple majority voting system employed in the UK, which frequently translates a minority of votes into a majority of seats. In fact, since 1918, the Conservatives have only won over 50% of the vote on two occasions, which is somewhat low for a party which is supposed to have dominated politics in this country.
Given that the cases for the UK having a two or dominant party system have fallen down on the fact that other parties have had too great an influence, it could then be argued that two and a half or three party system must exist. This rests on the idea that the Liberal Democrats are or have been an influential political power. Since the February 1974 general election, the Liberals either alone or allied to the Social Democrats have contested virtually all UK constituencies and has achieve a creditable share of the vote. Whilst failing to achieve power in Westminster since the First World War, the Liberal Democrat party fares particularly well in local and by-elections and all other forms of lower level politics. However, The Liberals are still a fairly weak parliamentary force and their support has not been required by the two major parties for a great many years.
The argument that Britain is a multi party system depends on the area of UK politics and democracy taken into consideration. At regional level, many small and independent parties contest and occasionally win seats in local as well as general elections. For example, the Save Kidderminster Hospital actually won a seat in a general election due to support from locals. The introduction of devolution by the Labour party since 1997 has regionalised democracy even further and has resulted in the emergence of small nationalist parties such as the SNP in Scotland, Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland and Plaid Cymru in Wales, which have nope chance of holding government in Westminster but do receive a great deal of local support. Therefore at local and even devolved level, the UK can be classed as possessing the qualities of a multi party system. However at national level, this idea seems implausible as the vast majority of seats are shared by only two or perhaps three parties and therefore the smaller parties can be considered to have very little effect on the overall political situation.
In conclusion, the UK can still best be described as a two party system, provided two considerations are taken into account. The first is that Conservative dominance victories between 1979-97 was not a suggestion of party dominance and that eventually, the swing of the political pendulum will be even for both sides. This can perhaps be seen today with Labour’s two landslide victories in 1997 and 2001. The second consideration is that whilst voters are offered a great deal of choice at constituency level, the vast majority of these parties are far too small to have any great impact on the political system and can therefore be considered irrelevant on a national scale and have only regional significance.
