minor parties essay plan Flashcards
minor parties points
shape political agenda
act as parliamentary kingmakers
diminish support for the two main parties by taking away votes
act as kingmakers
A further reason as to why it may be suggested that minor parties have an impact in UK politics today is due to their ability to act as parliamentary kingmakers, forming the basis upon which the government of the day functions. The event of a coalition government from 2010-2015 and a minority government from 2017-2019 displays that this is increasingly the case and should be considered a role of minor parties which therefore makes them central to the political system. The reliance of Theresa May’s premiership on the DUP displays that minor parties are of central importance in the UK political system. Therefore it has become acknowledged that minor parties cannot be marginalised and ruled out of serving in government as the tendency of the FPTP electoral system to produce an indecisive result makes them more important.
do not act like kingmakers
However, it remains true that at the moment minor parties are not important on this basis as the government enjoys a decisive 80 seat majority and does not rely on any other party for numerical support in parliament. The hung parliaments produced in 2010 and 2017 were merely anomalies within the UK’s electoral history and thus it would be a misrepresentation of facts to claim that minor parties are important on the basis that they may prop up the government and provide them with the stability to govern. On this basis therefore it is the case that minor parties in the UK are not important.
shape agenda
The greatest reason as to why it can be suggested the small parties have a significant impact on UK politics is due to their ability to shape the political agenda, an increasingly important factor considering the tendency of voters to cast their vote based on issues more than anything. The Brexit party for example, managed to successfully shape the 2019 general election debate around Brexit to the extent that those in the media and the electorate, either explicitly or implicitly, viewed it as the ‘Brexit election’. The Green Party have also had success in recent times as their emphasis on sustainability and the environment has been a factor as to why climate change is now at the forefront of political issues, thereby displaying how minor parties have been successful in shaping the political agenda.
do not shape agenda
Yet, it is the case that the political debate is typically shaped around the actions of the government, something acknowledged by the fact that the minor parties are in opposition to hold the government to account. Therefore, whilst they do spend time attempting to shape the political agenda, a lot of their time is spent on scrutinising the government and they often fail to shape the whole political debate around their salient issue. Indeed, in the 2019 general election in spite of the role played by the Brexit party, it was the Conservative Party who really shaped the political debate as they pledged to ‘Get Brexit done’ and attacked the Labour Party leadership in the process thereby forming the debate around their agenda and supposed inefficiency of their opposition.
diminish votes
The ability of minor parties in the UK to diminish the support of the two main parties is arguably a reason which serves to display that they are of increasing importance within the UK political system and should not be overlooked. For example, the SNP have effectively taken over Scotland which had 42 seats in 2010, the Lib Dems took both Labour and Conservative Party voters in the 2019 General election and the Brexit Party also drew support from a significant number of traditional Labour voters in 2019, hence the crumbling of the ‘red wall’. Therefore, minor parties are displaying themselves as serious players within the UK political system and are rightly exercising an increasing influence in the process.
do not diminish votes
However, the point that minor parties may diminish the support base of the two main parties therefore displaying their importance can be rebuked on the basis that there still does remain a two party system which they have been able to cut through. In spite of losing two million votes in the 2019 general election, the Labour Party still gained just under 3 times as many votes as the Liberal Democrats and more than 4 times relative to the SNP. The Conservative Party enjoyed more votes over the Labour Party than the SNP and the Brexit Party did in the election as a whole. Therefore, it would seemingly be a misjudgement to suggest that minor parties have been successful in diverting support away from the two main parties and therefore they are not important in this sense.
