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The Political Parties in Britain

The document discusses the history and development of political parties in the UK during the 20th century, including the emergence of the Tories and Whigs following the English Civil War and their evolution into the Conservative and Liberal parties. It also outlines the current two-party system and describes the main left-wing Labour party and centrist Liberal Democrats.

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29 views3 pages

The Political Parties in Britain

The document discusses the history and development of political parties in the UK during the 20th century, including the emergence of the Tories and Whigs following the English Civil War and their evolution into the Conservative and Liberal parties. It also outlines the current two-party system and describes the main left-wing Labour party and centrist Liberal Democrats.

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3/POLITICAL PARTIES IN BRITAIN DURING THE 20TH CENTURY

The history of the UK's political parties can be traced back to the English Civil War.

The English Civil War (1642-1651) was fought between royalists who supported the absolute
monarchy that reigned at the time, and parliamentarians who supported a constitutional
monarchy. In a constitutional monarchy, the monarch's powers are bound by a constitution, a
set of rules by which a country is governed. The parliamentarians also wanted a parliament
with the power to make the country's legislation.

The English Civil War was also fought to decide how the three kingdoms of Ireland, Scotland,
and England should be ruled. At the end of the war, parliamentarian Oliver Cromwell
replaced the monarchy with the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland, unifying
the isles under his personal rule. This move consolidated the rule of Ireland by a minority of
English landowners and members of the Protestant church. In turn, this further split Irish
politics between Nationalists and Unionists.

This set of events led to the emergence of the first political parties. These were the royalist
Tories and the parliamentarian Whigs.

It wasn't until the 19th century, following the Representation of the People Acts of 1832 and
of 1867, the two parties clarified their political positions to attract the new voters' support.
The Tories became the Conservative Party, and the Whigs became the Liberal Party.

UK political party system

These historical events set the scene for the political party system that the UK still has today:
the two-party system.

The two-party system is characterised by a “majority”, or “governing” party and a “minority”,


or “opposition” party. The majority party will be the party that has gained the most seats, and
it's responsible for governing the country for a set amount of time. In the UK, general
elections, are usually held every 5 years.

In the UK, the elected Parliament body consists of 650 seats. A party has to gain at least 326
to become the governing party.

The role of the opposition is to


 contribute to the policies of the majority party by offering constructive criticism.
 Oppose policies they disagree with.
 Propose their own policies to appeal to voters with the following election in mind.

Types of political parties in UK

Political parties are typically divided into the “left” and “right” wings. But what do we mean
by this? These are types of political parties that we see in the UK and across the world.

(The differentiation of the “right” and “left” wings goes back to the time of the
French Revolution? When the National Assembly met, to avoid clashing with each
other, supporters of religion and the monarchy used to sit to the right of the
president, whilethe supporters of the revolution sat on the left.)

Generally, right-wing politics supports keeping things the way they are. In opposition to this,
left-wing politics supports change.

Left-wing politics, today, support an equal society, brought about by government intervention
in the form of taxes, regulation of business and welfare policies.

The Conservative Party is historically right-wing and one of the two main parties in UK
politics. Conservative Party policies, however, started to have common ground with centre
politics when conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli created the concept of “one-
nation conservatives”.

One-nation conservatism is based on Disraeli's belief that conservatism shouldn't benefit just
those who were at the top of the social hierarchy. Instead, he put in place social reforms to
improve the lives of the working class.

This perspective was temporarily abandoned during the years when Margaret Thatcher was
prime minister. However, one-nation conservatism has seen reappearance through more
recent conservative leaders such as David Cameron.

Labour

The UK Labour Party is historically a left-wing party, born out of the workers' union to
represent the interest of the working class. Workers' unions, or trade unions, are organisations
that aim to protect, represent, and further the interests of workers.
The Labour Party was founded in 1900. In 1922, it surpassed the Liberal party and has since
either been the governing or the opposition party. Tony Blair, and Gordon Brown, Labour
Prime Ministers between 1997 and 2010, merged some centre policies to Labour's traditional
left-wing stance, and temporarily rebranded the party as “New Labour”.

Liberal Democrats

In 1981, the centre-leaning wing of the Labour Party split to become The Social Democratic
Party. When they then joined the Liberal Party, this union became the Social and Liberal
Democrats, and then the Liberal Democrats.

In 2015, the Liberal Democrats and the Conservative Party joined to create a coalition
government. Other than this, since Labour's success in the early 20th Century, the LibDems
have been the third-biggest party in the UK.

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