Political Parties Flashcards
Give three ways in which the UK is a two-party system.
IS a two party system:
✔ Labour + Conservative are the only parties with a realistic chance of forming government e.g. in 2017 Lab + Tories won 89% of seats
✔ Greens have failed to add to their 1 seat - UKIP are seen as a spent force in 2019 - winning 0.07% of the vote.
✔ Lib Dems are becoming less populous - e.g. 2015 finished 224 seats behind Labour.
Give three ways in which the UK is a multi-party system.
IS a multiparty system:
❌ 2015 - 13.5% backed parties other then the Lab+Tory (61% in Scotland).
❌ Smaller parties have achieved success in second-order elections. e.g. UKIP won popular vote in the 2014 MEP
❌ Scottish AMS means that third parties play a significant role
List three roles of UK political parties.
- Representation
- Policy formation
- Stable government
Give an example of how political parties encourage political engagement.
- Memberships - Con - 180,000 - 92,000 voted for BJ as leader.
- Party conferences - members are invited.
- Hustings events - with candidates and voters.
Give an example of the impact of a single issue party. (UKIP)
UKIP won popular vote in the 2014 MEP elections - pressure on Cameron to hold an EU referendum.
Con would have seen a vote loss to UKIP if they didn’t hold a referendum.
3 forms of ministerial responsibility
- Policy Decisions: When gov proposes new Policies, all ministers are responsible for it, even if they didn’t personally make the decision.
- Legislation: If a new law doesn’t work as intended, all ministers are responsible, not just the one who proposed it.
- accountability: If one minister messes up in public, it reflects on the whole government, so they all have to deal with it together - David Blanket visa scandal
3 reasons the UK has a multi-party system
- Regional and ideological differences (national parties influence Westminster)
- significance of Voting systems (e.g second tier Influence + AMS)
- role of 3rd parties in influencing legislation
