Parties Flashcards
Pair of Arguments for State Funding of Parties: Corrupt Donations vs Taxpayers
For: it will end the opportunities for the corrupt use of donations which are often known as cash for honours. Some donors give money in the expectation of being granted an honour or access to decision makers. For example conservative donor Lubov Chernukhin, whose husband was closely associated with Vladimir Putin, paid £1.7 million to the conservative party and has enjoyed personal meetings with the last three conservative prime ministers. This is clearly corrupt.
Against: taxpayers may object to funding what can be ‘private’ organisations. There are many other calls on government revenue and other areas by tax payer money is demanded to be spent which are seen as more important. People will not want to fund parties that they do not support. Eg, recent demand from the public in the form of multiple waves of strikes from 2022-2023 have proven public demand for more money to be put into public sector areas such as school unions and the NHS; for many, extra funding towards political parties is not what they want their tax money to be spent on.
Pair of Arguments for State Funding of Parties: Hidden influence vs Distribution Debate
For: End possibility of hidden forms of influence through funding and donations. For example Bernie Eccleston donated £1,000,000 to labour which influence their decisions on tobacco laws for race drivers.
Against: However, this raises the question on how its distributed? Currently, major parties are advantaged. The 2007 Phillips report recommended a ‘pence-per-voter’ formula for greater state funding of parties. Yet this formula would serve only to benefit the two main parties that receive the most votes.
Pair of Arguments for State Funding of Parties: Financial Disadvantages currently vs Loss of party independence
For: It could reduce the huge financial advantage that large parties enjoy and give smaller parties the opportunity to make progress. In the run up to German elections, smaller parties often have to rely on taking out loans that can put their long term viability and success in jeopardy. For example labour and conservative receive much more than minor parties, for example in 2019 labour got over £8,000,000 whereas the SNP only received £825,000.
Against: Parties may lose a lot of their independence and will see themselves as organs of the state. For example, currently parties also receive money from private donations eg: Brexit accepted £3,390,000 worth of funding excluding public funds, allowing them to carry out monumental amounts of work in continuing to campaign for their Brexit deal. However, if parties rely on the state for their finance, it might begin to try and influence and control the way in which parties spend their money. This would reduce democracy and freedom of political parties, and make the state in control, rather than the parties in the country and the government which actually have democratic legitimacy.
Pair of Arguments for State Funding of Parties: Improve democracy by improving participation vs Excessive state regulation of parties
For: State funding could improve democracy by ensuring wider participation from groups which currently have little to no sources of funds. For example, parties such as the Liberal Party made as little as £28,000, an extremely difficult amount for a group or party to actually be heavily politically active etc in the form of campaigns. It is clear that there are flaws in the system since they prohibit the ability for smaller groups and parties to grow.
Against: It ma lead to excessive state regulation of parties. Example: the Political parties, Elections and Referendums Act (PPERA) 2000 already imposes overall limits on party spending in general elections and in other elections, to make parties less reliant on wealthy individual bankers. Any further regulation could limit their ability to campaign effectively.
Functions of Parties: Making policy and Aggregation
When a ruling party controls the government they are quite literally the government, hence the policy making function is highly important because if they become the ruling party, their manifesto will be the economic etc policy of the country.
Functions of Parties: Representation
Parties claim to have a representative function, eg Labour was developed in the early 20th century to very much ‘represent’ the working classes, especially union members. The Tory party of the 19th century began very much as the representative of the landed gentry and the aristocracy. Of course nowadays, they arguably must represent the whole nation. Eg, Conservatives have moved to slightly more centrist policies which represent the whole nation such as focus on NHS support: Johnson’s 2019 Manifesto promised to increase nurses to 50,000 and increase welfare support for pensioners, by increasing pensions by 2.5% per year.
Functions of Parties: Identifying Leaders
Parties of course need leaders who are potential government ministers in the case of the main parties. In ruling party, PM completely controls the appointment of ministers. In opposition, leader chooses smaller group of ‘frontbench’ spokespersons who form the leadership.
Identifying Leaders: Labour Examples
Issue of political leadership was thrown into focus within the Labour Party in 2015-2016, following the 2015 election defeat, the former leader, Ed Miliband resigned. Left behind power vacuum; huge controversy in finding a successor. Party membership voted overwhelmingly for Corbyn. However, his views were far to left for most Labour MPs and peers, hence despite being party leader till 2020, many Labour MPs in Parliament refused to acknowledge him as their leader.
Identifying Leaders: Conservative Examples
After losing faith in its leader, May in 2019, the party had no problem electing Johnson due to his overwhelming amounts of support and favour among the Tory MPs. 24 July 2020 became PM.
Identifying leaders: Liberal Democrat Examples
In leadership elections of 2019 to 2020, candidates had to be an MP and required the support of 10% of Lib Dem MPs, and support of at least 200 members spread across at least 20 different local parties, to ensure widespread support for any candidate. They used AV, which should ensure a majority although in 2019 and 2020 the contests only had two candidates (Jo Swinson and Ed Davey 2019, Ed Davey and Layla Moran 2020). Davey was more centrist wing, Swinson and Moran more progressive and socially liberal.
Part Functions: Political Education
Parties are continuously involved in the process of political education, because they can explain the main areas of conflict and outline their own solutions to the problems that have been identified. Example: The way the Green Party raised awareness about environmental issues, while UKIP made the role and position of the EU a source for debate. Labour also raised awareness of the issues of low pay, zero hours contracts and funding the ‘bedroom tax’, all of which have introduced these ideas to members of the public who are not directly affected by them.
Electoral Commission Donation Reports
-2015-2017, Conservatives received £11.3 million from prominent figures and companies in the financial sector, and £3.6 million from property companies, and Angus Fraser donated £1,137,400.
-Unite trade union gave £657,702 to Labour in 2017, and UNISON, public service union, gave £376,242 to Labour.
Donation irregularities: Labour being held to account
In 2016 labour was fined 20,000 pounds by the Electoral Commission for breaching finance rules. The investigation was launched after 7614 pounds were found to be missing from the parties election return for the costs Add Miliband tombstone. The investigation went on to identify 24 other undeclared election expenses, totalling at 109,777 pounds. At the time, Bob Posner, a commissions director of party and election finance said ‘the Labour Party is a well-established, experienced party. Rules on reporting campaign spending have been in place for over 15 years and it is vital that the larger parties comply with these rules and report their finances accurately of voters are to have confidence in the system. In a statement the Commission said it was pushing the government for an increase in the maximum £20,000 penalty available to it for a single offence to an amount more in proportion with the spending in donations handled by larger campaigners.
Donation irregularities: Conservatives being held to account
In 2017, following some rule changes, the conservative party was fined 70,000 pounds for breaches in his expenses reporting for the 2015 German election. The Commission found that the conservatives have failed to correctly report £104,765 of campaigning expenses and incorrect reporting of a further £118,124. Commission chairman Sir John Holmes said the Tories failure to follow the rules undermined voters confidence in our democratic processes and said there was a risk that political parties were seeing such fines as a cost of doing business.
(argument for state party funding; irregularities of donations due to parties viewing it as ‘business’.)
Parties enhancing democracy: Representation
For: Parties offer the people a variety of different ways to vote in terms of where a party lies on the political spectrum, and what wing it is. People being able to have a free vote on an MP who will then have power to use its parties influence in Parliament is a very democratic process. Eg, after an investigation carried out by the Electoral Commission in 2019, there are 408 political parties in the UK. Furthermore, if we look at party manifestos, Starmers’ 2019 manifesto wanted to increase the Health Budget by 4.3%, Raise the minimum wage to £10 an hour, and stop state pension age rises. Just these three parts of his manifesto make clear the role of parties in representation; they represent the elderly and pensioners, people’s right to a good minimum wage to survive on, and protecting peoples right to free healthcare.
Against: Parties can also distort representation; the governing party is always elected without an overall majority of the national vote, and yet it claims to have the mandate of the people. The ‘winner takes all’ nature of our political system can leave some groups unrepresented, as it could be argued as too partisan and not able to seek a consensus of support for policies. For example, almost the only example that can be thought of where two parties work together was the coalition. Apart from this, generally unelected parties have very little say in policy etc.
