Spotted this week a column by James Forsyth of the Spectator, offering the usual Tory criticisms of electoral reform (i.e. that they won't be able to form a government, blithely ignoring the current situation). What really aggregated me however was this bit:
'The layout of the Commons’ chamber — with MPs facing each other, separated by the distance of two swords — creates an expectation that there should be two sides in politics, a government party and an opposition party.'
He then goes on about how we've always had a 2 party system. Apart from the postwar era however is historically inaccurate. Going back to the early 19th century, it was just Whigs and Tories right? Eh, no, there were radicals and Irish MP's (who formed a succession of different parties). The Conservatives (formally Tories) split over the corn laws forming the peelites, giving 5 parties in the 1850's. These merged with the Whigs and Radicals to form the Liberal Party, bring the total number in parliament. down to 3.
20 years later the Liberal Unionists broke away over Ireland, giving 4 again. By the eve of WW1 they had merged with the Conservatives, however the rise of Labour meant there were still 4 main parties in the commons. Post war the Irish party was wiped out, and the Liberals split yet again. Up until WW2 there were still 3-4 main parties, and this has been the case since the 80's again.
So to say that Britain has always had a 2 party system is a gross exaggeration. My hope is that we are heading towards another realignment of the parties, and that there will prove room for a socially and economically liberal party like LPUK.
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1 comments:
What the Conservatives and Labour members/MPs don't like is that new parties can put them out of business. A new party can come along that shares many features of the Conservatives, but does a better job of it and people won't just vote Conservative because that will get Labour out, they'll put the Conservatives 2nd.
This means that having a career in the party as a SpAd, losing candidate followed by a safe seat aren't guaranteed. The whole system breaks down for them.
What you find in other countries with systems like PR or STV is that new parties can actually get off the ground for precisely this reason. Parties like Forza Italia would never have got to power in this country (and despite what the chattering classes may paint him as, he's been generally popular in Italy).
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