Political Parties Flashcards
Define a political party
Political party = organised body seeking to win government by putting up candidates for election + mobilising a popular party
Explain the representation function of political parties and examples for how they do and don’t fulfil it
- Parties link the government + people together by representing public opinion with policy positions + claiming a mandate from votes
- Effective: UK Parties are now ‘catch-all parties’ - they have policies which they then enact with a mandate
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Ineffective:
Pressure groups are more effective forms of representation - 41% of Conservative MPs = privately educated - 65% of Sunak’s Cabinet = privately educated - compared to 9% in the general population
- 90% of Labour MPs went to uni in 2019
Explain the political engagement + participation function of political parties and examples for how they do and don’t fulfill it
- Provide opportunties for citizens to shape policy by joining the party
- Educates + mobilises electorate - which builds up loyalty
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Effective: Offer a range of activites = convassing, public meetings, campaigning
Party membership + running events - with specific links to organisations such as Labour + trade unions + the Fabian Society - Ineffective: Turnout in GEs has fallen shortly since 1997 - 59% 2001 + 67% 2019
- Party membership of the three major parties has fallen = unable to mobilise participation
- Voter dealingment - 44% had strong loyalty in 1964 + 9% 2015
Explain the political recruitment function of political parties and examples for how they do and don’t fulfill it
- They train + recruit people for elections + government posts
- Help fill seats in elected bodies
- Train future party leaders by giving them posts to develop
- Effective: Parties provide the candidates for elections + fill seats in local councils, devolved assemblies + the HOC
- Headhunting unusual candidates + providing them with support + structure for people becoming MPs to help campaign
- Ineffective: Parties choose leaders who will win elections + are popular rather than competent
- Party leaders are chosen by party members = 2% of the pop- aren’t democratically accountable
- Reliance on connecttions + special advisors who later become ministers e.g Alex Burghart
- Cost - to campaign to be an MP you have to quit your job for 6 months min + need money to campaign
Explain the policy formulation function of political parties and examples for how they do and don’t fulfill it
- Set public policy giving voters a clear choice - have clear ideological convictions
- Manifesto is a means that parties can be judged by
- Effective: Develop manifestos which lay out legislation they want to implement
- Labour - wanting to renationalise railways
- Conservatives - work with experts - Cass Report - overly ideological
- Ineffective: Parties no longer have ideological choices have technocratic choices
- More effective choice of leader or personality over parties - follow public opinion
Explain the stable government function of political parties and examples for how they do and don’t fulfill it
- Parties form government + then implement their manifesto
- Governments are drawn from the same party = same values
- Parties pass legislation + scrutinise gov policy
- Effective: Typically a single party has a majority in the HOC + clear manifesto
- Opposition = ‘government in waiting’
- Vote whipping - 3-line whip
- Ineffective: Has been a decline in party unity - weakened a party’s control over the HOC
- Increase in internal party divisions + rebellions + overthrowing leaders - May had a 12 majority at the start
- Many PM’s in a few years - May-Johnson-Truss-Suank + many SNP leaders - 3 in 3 years
Explain how party’s fund their expenses
- Parties raise the majority of their election costs from the voluntary subscriptions of their membership + fundraising events in MP’s constituencies
- There is a special state provision to support the activities of the opposition in Parliament called Short money
Explain the issues and controversies around party funding
- The large parties have been accused of offering political honours such as places in the HOL to the most generous benefactors
- Mohamed Mansour was given an honour by Sunak in March 2024 after giving the party £5 mil in 2023
Explain what reforms have been implemented to make party funding transparency
2000 Political Parties, Elections and Referndums Act:
1. Independent electoral commission was set up to supervise party spending on election campaigns
2. Party’s were capped at £30,000 in a constituency
3. Donations of more than £5000 (nationally) or £1000 (constituency) had to be declared + published at regular intervals
4. Donations from indivduals not on the UK electoral roll = bannned
Explain why the reforms regarding party funding weren’t compelty effective + what it later led to
- ‘Cash for peerages’ scandal in 2006 - several wealthy individuals had loaned money to the Labour party had been nominated for honours
- Party was exploting a loophole in the law that meant that only ourtright gifts were regulated
- Led to loans becoming subejct to the same rules as donations + spending limits for parties were revised in the run-up to the **2010 GE
- Max a party can raise** = £35 mil
Explain arguments regarding potential reforms that should be made to party funding
- In 2007 a report by Sir Philips (Former CS) proposed to address the problem of private donations moving public funding through taxation
- However pressure to make public spending cuts meant that placing additional burdens on taxpayers
Explain arguments regarding potential reforms that should be made to party funding by the Lib Dems + Labour + the Conservatives response to it
- Labour + Lib Dems in 2015 supported imposing limits on individual donations to parties - Conservatives stood to lose the most so wanted the same with Labour’s treade union backers
- 2016 Trade Union Act oliged new trade union members choose whether toopt in’ to making payments to the political levy - led to drop in LP donations
Explain criticisms of political parties
- Many stifle debate by enforcing uniformity + conformity among its members - whips ensure they all follow the **party line so representation is weak
- Prevents new or radical ideas** from developing in order to keep support from the mainstream
- E.g 7 Labour MPs suspended from the party for voting against the two-child benefit cap
Explain the parties position on economic policy
Economy
* 3 main UK parties plege not to increae the main taxes NI, income tax + VA
* Conservatives pledged to cut NI + reduced it further during the Parliament + abolish it entirely for self-employed people if re-elected
* Labour reversed (pre-election) it planned annual £28 billion spending on green investment
* Labour creating state-funded energy company - Great British Energy
* Labour to renationalise railways - Conservatives took over 4 failing rail companies + propsoed to set up a body to manage infrastructure + give out contracts
Explain the parties position on the welfare state
Welfare
* Labour has pledged to reform the Health Secretary posed the choice ‘modernise or die’ - temporary reliance on private services + more digitalisaion e.g more diagnostic scanners. 40,000 new appointments
- All 3 main parties pledged to recruit more GPs + have all backed the plan to phase out smoking
- Labour will cut welfare payments when people, especially young people, refuse to take up the employment found for them
- Labour have not committed to scrap the two-child limit on payments + reform but not abolish UC
- Lib Dems have proposed to scrap two-child limit + raise Universal Credit + reform social care - more help for carers
- All parties pledge to keep the triple lock on pensions
Explain the parties position on law and order
Law and Order
* All 3 main parties are committed to increased investment in the police - Labour want 13,000 more front line officers
- Liberal Democrats pledge to abolish PCC’s and invest the money instead into front-line policing
- Labour promised a crackdown on knife crimes - banning zombie knifes, combining punishment of offenders with early intervention e.g Young Future Hubs (preventing exploitation through employment, poverty prevention)
Explain the parties position on foreign affairs
Foreign Affairs
* No major UK party is committed to reversing Brexit
- Both the Liberal Democrats (pledged to reverse the referendum result in 2019) and Labour pledge to improve the deal with the EU
- Labour pursuing a trade deal with the US - new ambassador Peter Mandelson
- All 3 main parties supportive of Ukraine - supplying weaponary
- Critical of Israel’s severe military response - over 40,000 Palestinians dead - Conservatives were challenging the ICC investigation of Netanyahu - Labour dropped the challenge
Explain the ideology of Old Labour
Old Labour
* Endorsed Clause 4 in the party’s constitution - committment to common ownership + redistribution of wealth
* Labour government of 1945-51 was socialist - nationalised major industries, creating the NHS + welfare state
* Labour pursued the radical left-wing leader Michael Foot whose 1983 manifesto gave Labour a major lost pivoted to New Labour
Explain the ideology of New Labour and the progression of the party post it
New Labour
* New Labour were in pursuit of m/c voters
* Blair removed the Clause 4 in the party 1997 manifesto
* Labour Third Way shunned radical economic redistribution enacted major constitutional reforms
* Controversial over the 2003 US/UK invasion of Iraq in opposition due to the strong foreign policy stance
* In 2019 the ‘Brexit election’ Corbyn a socialist campainged to reverse Brexit - lost 40 traditional ‘red wall’ seats to Johnson
Explain Starmer’s ideology leading his party + policies
Starmer Labour Party
Social Democracy:
* Collectivism - Great British Energy, renationalising the trains
* Taxation + redistribution - “those with the broadest shoulders should carry the burdern” - introduced 20% farmers inheritance tax + increased corporation tax (higher rate - 24%)
* Equal opportunities - VAT on private schools
* Welfare - free breakfast clubs primary school
* Workfare - a hand up, not hand out - benefits removed in unemployed people don’t take up opportunities to work (Third Way)
* Starmer removed the party whip from Corbyn + barred him from standing as a Labour candidate + Labour 6 were forbidden from joining public service strikes on the picket lines - 2023
Starmer’s main policy U-turns from his 2020 leadership election to 2024 GE
Policy U-Turns
* £28 billion per year green investment pledge
* Restoring cap on banker’s bonuses
* Raising 45p top income tax rate to 50p
* Abolisihing two-child benefit cap
* Abolishing student tution fees
* Re-entering the EU
Explain Labour’s economic policies in 2024 and how they have changed
Economy
* Labour 2019 planed to nationalise energy, water, railways, Royal Mail - 2024 only plan to nationalise railways
- Replace the National Minimum Wage with a ‘genuine living wage’ takes into account real cost of living
- Scrapping ‘non-dom’ tax status
- All workers to have basic employment rights - ban zero-hour contracts, end ‘fire and rehire’, parental leave, better sick leave, boost collective baragaining rights
Explain Labour’s law and order policies in 2024 and how they have changed
Law and Order
* 2019 manifesto opposed ‘austerity cuts’ to police + pledged to reverse them
- Starmer 2024 pledge to get more 13,000 more police, halve knife crime, halve violence against women (special rape courts), unblock courts, proper victims law
Explain Labour’s foreign affairs policies in 2024 and how they have changed
Foreign Affairs
* Labour MP had the whip removed for saying Gaza should be remembered as a genocide on Holocaust Memorial Day
* Another Labour Mp apolgised for saying that PM Sunak had “the blood of thousands of innocent people on his hands”
Sunak’s main policy U-turns
Policy U-Turns
* Delayed the ban on new fossil fuelled cars until 2035
* Dropped plans to fine landlords who fail to upgrade their properties to energy efficient standards
* Abandoned the 2019 manifesto promise of no increase to any main taxes; Parliament has overseen the highest tax burden for 70 years
* Ditched the promise of madatory housing targets
* Ditched the promise to review or scrap all 2400 EU laws in the UK
* Reduced the earnings the threshold for British citizens to bring foreign dependents to live in the UK - kept skilled workers in the UK
* Scrapped the northen leg of high speed rail speed of HS2
Explain the key economic, law, foreign and welfare policies of Sunak’s policies
Economy
* Scaled back HS2
* Rising National Minimum Wage
* Council’s budget are being cut back
Law and Order
* Police shortages, growing court backlog + prison overcrowding
* Constraints on public protests
Welfare
* Record waiting list and staff shortages - did not strike a deal with striking public sector workers
* UC payments for those on lowest wages cut to £20 aa week
* Maintain triple lock on pensions
Foreign Affairs
* Pursued the Rwanda plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda - £700 million was spent on this
* Backed Ukraine through continued funding against Russia
