A two-party has always held its positive aspects. The most common pro’s of the system being portrayed as a system that creates stability. Also its creates strong government, but does it really? In-party squabbling in the Conservatives reign during the nineties restricted their abilities to put policies into place. In a two-party system, uncommon ideas are often paid more attention as they become more popular, which is seen as frustrating for smaller parties, but enhances stability while allows for ideas that gain popularity to become influential.
“The more a political system is capable of expressing itself through contrast presented by two large political parties, the more satisfactory it works” – quote from political scientist, Harold Laski
So there are obvious advantages in using this system, but there are also visible disadvantages to it. Under the present system a government may exercise full power even though it is supported by a small minority of the popular vote, e.g. Labour formed a majority government in October 1974 with only 39% of the vote, allowing a party to make decisions that don’t have a majority support.
The present system has been seen to discriminate that when the party’s share of the vote is markedly under-represented in its share of the seats, as always happens to the Liberal Democrats and in 1997 even to the Conservatives in Scotland. Their 17.5% of the Scottish vote brought them no seats whatsoever. So the system we have in place appears to under-represent some parties, and do the opposite with others. But do the positive sides cancel problems like these out? The system always tends to create a strong government; the same cannot be said for forms of Proportional Representation.
So is the system currently in place in Britain restricting our minority parties? To further examine this, the progress of the Liberal Democrats and The Green Party needs to be looked at. This will provide evidence as to whether our system restricts the parties, or in fact progress is being made.
References: Statistics taken from “British Politics Today” by Bill Jones and Dennis Kavanagh
Information from “http://www.wikipedia.org”
Chapter 4
Examining the position as current of Britains third parties
In Britain there are two major third parties, these being the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party, the Liberals being the larger of the two. There are other third parties, but these tend to be national parties, like Plaid Cymru in Wales and the SNP in Scotland. In recent years, there have been many signs that the Greens and the Liberals are advancing in their electoral support, but how much progress have the two really made?
Liberal Democrats
The Liberal Democrats have been for many years the strongest of the third parties, holding strongly in the centre of the political ideology spectrum. Since the mid-eighties, there have been signs that the Liberal Democrats could be prepared to perhaps ‘overtake’ one of the two major parties and become one of the two dominate parties. It looked very possible that the party could overtake Labour after the 1983 and 1987 elections, but nothing ever came of this belief. Also, now in more recent times it is being evermore suggested that with the Conservatives in great decline, there is now the greatest chance ever for the Liberal Democrats to fill the vacant hole that the Conservatives appear to be leaving. So how much progress have the Liberal Democrats made?
From 1992 to 1997 the Liberal Democrats achieved several spectacular electoral successes.
The Liberal Democrats won their first-ever seats in the European Parliament in 1994, with gains in Somerset & North Devon and Cornwall & Plymouth West. By-election successes continued, with victories in Newbury, Christchurch and Eastleigh.
On 1 May 1997, the Liberal Democrats won 46 seats, the highest number won by a third party since 1929. The election campaign was fought under the slogan 'Make the Difference', and focused heavily on the need for investment in education and health. It won widespread praise and recognition, lifting the party's share of the vote by 4-5 points during the six-week campaign. Seats were gained in every part of the country, the six victories in London being the highest number achieved since 1918.
The Liberal Democrats biggest success to date would have to be their coalition government with the Labour Party in Scotland. In the first Scottish elections of its new parliament, the Liberal Democrats won enough votes that they formed a coalition government with Labour. So does this show that the Liberal Democrats would have a large influence on politics if the UK operated under a PR system? As in Scotland, the election system is the ‘Additional Member System’, a form of PR. However, many argue that the Liberal Democrats have too much power in their coalition with Labour, the results show that overall, the SNP received more votes than them, yet it was the Liberals who formed the government. So has Scotland’s system represented the views of its population, or has the system simply given the Liberal Democrats more seats than they truly deserve?
Green Party
The Green Party hasn’t quite had success on the same level as the Liberal Democrats, but nevertheless they have had success in recent years, and their electoral base appears to be on the up consistently.
The Green Party has had a modestly successful set of elections this year.
In the Euro elections, on a very low poll, the Greens gained 5.8% of the vote across the UK, their highest regional vote being 8.3% in the Southwest. They held all the council seats they were defending in May and won five additional seats. They now have 27 councillors across England and Wales, from Devon to West Yorkshire, with the largest concentrations in Oxford (four district and two county councillors) and Stroud (four district councillors). If MPs were elected to the Westminster parliament on the same basis as in Germany, then a national vote of 5.8% would give them between 25 and 30 MPs.
Also, perhaps the Green Party’s biggest success of recent years, they won a seat in the Scottish Parliament. The Scottish Parliament has a system that operates under the Additional Member system, a form of Proportional Representation. This shows that perhaps, if we the United Kingdom had a similar system in place, the public opinion might be reflected as it has been in the Scottish Parliament, and The Greens may receive seats in Parliament.
So although it is a common view that Britains third parties are being restricted in their political progress by our current electoral system, it is clear to see that our third parties are making consistent progress. Also, if this progress is kept up, these parties could develop to become serious contenders in parliament, like the Liberal Democrats have already shown in Scotland. However, the success of the Greens and Liberals in Scotland also maybe suggests that they are successful due to the different system that operates in Scotland. So is there a restriction in progress because of the United Kingdoms system? And if we had a form of Proportional Representation on the United Kingdom, would the Liberals and the Greens have greater success? To examine this view, you could look at examples of other countries, ones with a similar system, and ones with an alternate system, i.e. America and Germany.
In Britain, as with all countries, there are extreme parties. The strongest of these extreme parties would be the British National Party (BNP).
They have struggled to ever make any real progress in Britain under a system that restricts its third parties, however like the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party, their support base appears to be growing. They have gained a lot of support from the large amount of people who disagree with asylum seekers in Britain. So there are two sides to the argument of parties like the BNP. It is argued that every group in politics should have say, so that all views are represented. But some argue that extreme groups just represent trouble, and under a PR system, these groups would have more influence, which in some people’s views is a bad thing.
Chapter 5
Examining the position of third parties in other countries
To examine the advantages and disadvantages of Britains party system in further detail, party systems, and third party positions in other countries need to be looked at. To Begin with, there is Germany.
Germany
Germany’s system is a form of proportional representation, called ‘The Additional Member system’. In comparison to the United Kingdom, where there is only two serious contenders at general elections, the Conservatives and the Labour Party, in Germany, there are four or five serious contenders, the question is, is this down to the differing party system?
Political analyst Kurt Sontheimer gives an explanation of the system,
“…all political decisions in the Federal Republic are made by the parties and their representatives. There are no political decisions of importance in the German democracy which have not been brought to the parties, prepared by them and finally taken by them”
Electoral System
In Germany’s electoral system, there are 656 parliamentary deputies to be filled. Half of the 656 are elected by a plurality vote in single-member districts, and the other half are elected by proportional representation from state party lists, i.e. the List system.
Each citizen gets two votes, the first vote is for a district candidate, and the second is for a party.
Minority Parties in Germany
Free Democrats (FDP)
The FDP are ideologically somewhere in between the two major parties (the Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Social Democrats (SPD)). It is the only small party that has managed to survive the steady reduction in the number of serious contenders for parliamentary representation since 1949. They have never received more than 13% of the party vote in any national election. Between 1957 and 1987 they did not win a single winner-takes-all district contest with the CDU and the SPD. Despite this, the FDP has played a role in the German political system far out of proportion to the size of its electorate. It has participated in fifteen of the nineteen cabinets formed at national level since 1949. Thus the FDP has been in power for thirty-eight of the Republics first fifty years.
It is thought that the party owes its survival to an electoral system that ensures proportional parliamentary representation. The party is the effective “pivot” party in Germany. This is basically because either the SPD or the CDU tend to command a majority of the votes, so the FDP has the balance of power in the Bundestag following most federal elections.
The Greens
The Greens were established by those groups in society who were concerned with the environment and especially with the danger of nuclear power plants. In 1979 and 1980 the Greens entered two state parliaments but fared poorly in the national elections, receiving less than two percent of the vote. After 1980 though, the Greens cause was greatly aided by the emergence of planned deployment of new middle-range ballistic missiles in the Federal Republic. The nationwide peace movement that followed in response to the missile deployment plan became a huge source of new support for the party.
In terms of the party’s effectiveness in parliament, for a minority party, its success is nothing compared to the FDP, however they can be shown to be making progress. They entered state parliaments in Berlin (1981), Lower Saxony (1982), Hamburg (1982), and Hesse (1982). With the addition of these newfound supporters, the party was in a position to challenge the established parties at the national level. In 1982, the Greens managed to enter the parliament with 5.6 percent of the vote. The party would have advanced further if it weren’t for internal issues. So although the party hasn’t made such an impact for a minority party as the FDP has, it still clearly has an impact on German politics.
So Germany, which uses a form of Proportional Representation, has more than two serious contenders in elections. This is shown to reflect the public opinion in Germany too, so this proves that in Germany at least, a form of Proportional Representation works for them. It also appears to give minority parties its proportionate share of seats in its parliament unlike here in the UK.
America
One significant fact in American politics is to have maintained the two party-system even though there had been political and economical crisis and social change. The existence of two leading parties means there has been no nationally successful third parties since the Republicans arose in the 1850s. With relatively few exceptions, Americans conduct elections at all levels with the two party-system. This pattern is unusual in democratic countries, where multiparty-systems are more common. Then why does the United States have only two party major parties? The two most convincing answers to this question stem from the electoral system and the process of political socialisation.
The American electoral system is majority representation. The first party or the second possesses most seats. As a result, third parties have very limited opportunity to take seats in Congress, even though holding sizeable national wide support. Even if the third party, which has taken roots in a certain region, holds a few seats, they cannot represent interests of its local constituencies in the congressional operation that the two major parties control. It is difficult for a third party to keep the existing holdings much less expand its power. Moreover the governmental organisation of president system gives the third parties little possibilities to develop a national wide. In order to compete for the presidency with the leading parties, it has to be powerful enough to hold at least the half of electors in the states. Usually only two major parties can meet these criteria. Parties that don’t have enough competitive power to contest for the presidency, the very final goal in politics, have not lasted for long.
So America seems to be similar to the UK in that it clearly restricts its third parties, but also creates strong government despite its inefficiencies. However, America differs in that its two parties seem to be similar in policies etc. both hold close to the middle political ground. America has always tended to have stable governments throughout its history, so despite its discrimination against third parties, the system has worked for America. However the American public appears to be disheartening and further unrest could decrease the already low voter turnout, so it could be questioned whether the system represents public opinion or not.
Chapter 6
Different party systems
One-party system
A one-system cannot produce a political system, as we would identify it in Britain. One party cannot produce any other system other than autocratic/dictatorial power. A state where one party rules would include the remaining communist states of the world (Cuba, North Korea, and China), and Iraq (where the ruling party is Ba’ath). The old Soviet Union was a one party state. One of the more common features of a one-party state is that the position of the ruling party is guaranteed in a constitution and law bans all forms of political opposition. The ruling party controls all aspects of life within that state. The belief that a ruling party is all important to a state came from Lenin who believed that only one party – the Communists – could take the workers to their ultimate destiny and that the involvement of the other parties would hinder this progress. There is belief that the United Kingdom is turning into a one-party state, so have we got to the point of a dictatorship?
Multi-party system
As the title suggests, this is a system where more than two parties have some impact in a states political life. Though the Labour Party has a very healthy majority in Westminster, its power in Scotland is reasonably well balanced by the power of the SNP; in Wales within the devolutionary structure, it is balanced by Plaid Cymru; in Northern Ireland by the various Unionist groups and Sinn Fein.
A multi-party system can lead to a coalition government as Germany and Italy has experienced. In Germany these have provided reasonably stable government and a successful coalition can introduce an effective system of checks and balances on the government that can promote political moderation. Also many policy decisions take into account all views and interests. In Italy, coalition governments have not been a success; many have lasted less than one year. In Israel, recent governments have relied on the support of extreme minority groups to form a coalition government and this has created its own problems with such support being withdrawn on a whim if those extreme parties feel that their own specific views are not being given enough support. This system has worked in Germany, so if the UK adopted this way would it represent public opinion better? And would it be as successful as Germany’s has been?
Dominant-party system
This is different from a one-party. A party is quite capable within the political structure of a state, to become dominant to such an extent that victory at elections is considered a formality. This was the case under the Conservative governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major. For eighteen years (1979 to 1997), one party dominated politics in Britain.
In theory, the Conservatives could have lost any election during these eighteen years. But such was the disarray of the opposition parties – especially Labour – that electoral victory was all but guaranteed. The elections of the 1980’2 and the 1990’s were fought with the competition from other parties – hence there can be no comparison with a one-party state. During an extended stay in power, a dominant party can shape society through its policies. During the Thatcher ere, health, education, the state ownership of industry etc. were all massively changed and re-shaped. Society changed as a result of these political changes and this can only be done by a party having an extended stay in office. This could be the kind of government we have in place just now, with the Conservatives in disarray, and the Liberal Democrats no serious contenders, we would seem to have a dominant party system.
These are the basics of the other systems, but how exactly does Britains ‘First-past-the-post’ work?
Reference: Information taken from “”
Chapter 7
First-Past-The-Post Examined
The current electoral system in place in Britain is called ‘first-past-the-post’, due to the fact that it’s the first party to get the most votes wins.
To summarise the system:
FPTP: An election voting system for single-member districts, in Britain there are 659 single member ‘constituencies’.
There has always been the clear plus points to this system, firstly that it provides a clear-cut choice for voters between two main parties. The built-in disadvantages faced by third and fragmented minority parties under FPTP in many cases makes the party system gravitate towards a party of the "left" and a party of the "right", alternating in power. Third parties often wither away, and almost never reach a threshold of popular support where their national vote achieves a comparable percentage of parliamentary seats. Because of its unrepresentative nature, it excludes extremist parties from parliamentary representation. Unless an extremist minority party's electoral support is geographically concentrated, it is unlikely to win any seats under FPTP. This contrasts with the situation under straight PR systems, where a fraction of one per cent of the national vote can ensure parliamentary representation. This has been seen in France and Holland, with extreme candidates almost securing power, a move that could have had disastrous consequences for these countries. Also, it allows voters to choose between people, rather than just between parties. At the same time, voters can assess the performance of individual candidates, rather than just having to accept a list of candidates presented by a party, as can happen under some List PR electoral systems. With this the voters know who their local MP/MSP is and have their very own representative, which they wouldn’t have under such systems as the List system.
However, FPTP has had its critics as well.
As a rule, under FPTP, parties put up the most broadly acceptable candidate in a particular district so as to avoid alienating the majority of electors. Thus it is rare, for example, for a black candidate to be given a major party's nomination in a majority white district in Britain or the USA. There is strong evidence that ethnic and racial minorities across the world are far less likely to be represented in parliaments elected by FPTP. In consequence, if voting behaviour does dovetail with ethnic divisions, then the exclusion from parliamentary representation of ethnic minority group members can be destabilising for the political system as a whole. In Margaret Thatchers cabinet, despite being the first female PM, has no women in it whatsoever, perhaps a case the pressure of ‘broadly accepted candidates’.
Votes that do not go towards the election of any candidate are often referred to as 'wasted votes'. Related to "regional fiefdoms" above is the prevalence of wasted votes, when minority party supporters begin to feel that they have no realistic hope of ever electing a candidate of their choice. This can be a particular danger in nascent democracies, where alienation from the political system increases the likelihood that extremists will be able to mobilize anti-system movements. Votes for the Liberal Democrats are more frequently being seen as wasted votes. Despite their progress, it is public opinion that they will never get their fair share, so under the system we have, the Liberal Democrats could go into decline if more and more people begin seeing a vote for them as a waste of a vote. So a change of system to a form of PR would prevent this from happening, as the Liberal Democrats shouldn’t go into decline, as in recent years they are shown to have a strong political base.
So this system does create strong governments, and gives the electorate clear choices. But the disadvantages are clear; it creates a two-party system, which discriminates against the minority parties. If the system was fair, and reflected public opinion, the Liberal Democrats would have much more of an influence in Parliament. So although it creates strong government etc. it doesn’t appear to reflect public opinion, which is the most crucial thing. So would a change to another system reflect the opinions of the public to a greater extent? It would appear so.
So in summarising First-Past-The-Post, it seems that the system naturally creates two dominant parties, like we have seen in Britain through the years. Where it often doesn’t fairly represent some parties, it does well to always create a strong majority government.
Questions have to be asked of Tony Blair. When running for government, he claimed to be all for electoral reform and he has done this in Scotland and Wales. However, he seems to be sticking with FPTP for the UK government, so why is he for a change for some governments, but not for his government. It is possible with having seen what has happened in Scotland, Labours dominance being evaporated, he is worried that a reform of the UK system could see the same happen again.
Chapter 8
Conclusion
In conclusion I think with all the information I have produced, the point has been proved that Britain does have a two-party system. Also, in doing this I have showed that the two-party system/first-past-the-post is restricting progress for Britains third parties, and it seems that a change in the system is needed. With America being the only other country in the Western world that employs this system, and a system that is heavily under constant criticism, this would all point towards a system change to a form of proportional representation, much like the ones employed in Scotland and Germany. The system in the UK (First-past-the-post) does have its strong points, it creates strong government, a majority government and it gives the electorate a clear choice. But despite this, it wouldn’t appear to be reflecting public opinion in the way that a form of Proportional Representation would. Although it has been shown that third parties are making short but steady progress on the political scene, what cant be denied is how unfair the system in in the way that it discriminates against third parties, by not allocating them the seats that their due in correlation with the votes that they have received, while allocating the two major parties with more than they deserve. Third parties have clearly only had real success in countries that use a form of proportional representation, i.e. Germany and Scotland.
Bibliography
“British Politics Today” by Bill Jones and Dennis Kavanagh,
“”
“British Politics In Focus”
“”
“The German Polity” by David P. Conradt, seventh edition, published 2001
“Politics UK – fourth edition” by Bill Jones, Dennis Kavanagh, Michael Moran and Philip Norton, published by Pearson Education Limited, 2001
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