UK POLITICS - Political Parties Flashcards
What is a political party?
A group of people organised for the purpose of wining power at a national and local level by putting up candidates in elections
What are the three main features of political parties?
- Aim to exercise power by winning political office
- Adoption of broad issue focus, covering main areas of government policy
- unity by shared political preference and general ideology
Traditionally, what is the aim of elections for larger and smaller parties?
- Larger parties, mainly LabCon and maybe LibDem, have a real shot at power in the Commons
- Smaller parties like Reform UK (5 seats) and Green (4 seats) mainly use it as a platform for issues important to them
How do parties present their policies before election?
Manifestos set out policy and covering all that the party presently wants to do, such as achieve Brexit (Con 2019) or to repeal private schools charity status (Labour 2024).
How is a party’s ideology often ‘loose’?
Parties, especially larger ones, are rarely fully united on a subset of their ideology, the Labour party is loosely Socialist but there are subsets of DemSocs, SocDems and Third Ways.
What are the five functions of a political party?
- Policy formulation
- Recruitment of leaders
- Representation
- Participation and mobilisation
- Organisation of government
Define aggregation:
The process of turning policies, demands, and ideas into practical policy progammes
What is the difference between the policy formulation in the governing party and the opposition?
- For the the governing party, it often involves the ministers, civil servants, committees and units of/private advisors, with backbenchers, local activists, and members playing a background role
- For the opposition party, the membership play a much larger role, informing the leadership of their perceptions during conferences and party committees.
Give an argument for the importance of policy formulation.
Major parties provide policy with clear ideological divide, giving the people a choice for where they want the country to go and the opportunity to judge the previous policy’s efficacy
- Cut asylum backlog by sending refugees to Rwanda or by hiring 1,000 new caseworkers
- Conservative party largely lost the vote because of Brexit
Give an argument against the importance of policy formulation.
As LabCon have moved away from their traditional ideologies and valence issues have arisen, they have also discarded the policy dillema portion of elections and made it more of a technocratic choice rather than on policy and removing the clear distinctions.
- Only 27% of people saw a great difference between LabCon in 2015, compared to 85% in 1987
- Move to presidentialism and importance of personal charisma (Blair Vs. Major)
Why is the recruitment of leaders important for larger parties?
Leaders of parties that stand a chance of winning power will possibly form the governments or shadow governments that will help run the country or play a key role in scrutiny.
For smaller parties, with little chance of gaining power, this is less important; Green party has co-leaders which, if they came into power, would be constitutionally unprecedented.
What was the issue with Corbyn as Labour Leader?
Although the membership favourite, he was much further to the left than most MPs and peers so often came into conflict with them.
Outline the basic process of Labour leadeship elections and the previous results.
- Candidates require support of 20% of MPs
- Instant run-off voting electoral system with members voting
Labour 2020 leadership election: Starmer (56.2%)
Outline the basic process of Conservative leadership elections and results.
- Candidates need varaible support based on the decision of the 1922 Comittee
- MPs vote OMOV and each stage, the candidate with the least votes is knocked out
- When only two are left, the membership votes and whoever is picked becomes the leader
Conservative 2024 leadership election: Badenoch (56.5%)
What is the LibDem leadership election process and result?
- Candidates require support of 10% of other MPs and 200 members from local parties
- Vote uses STV electoral system for legitimacy
LibDem 2020 leadership election: Sir Ed Davey (63.5%)
Give an argument for the importance of recruitment of leaders.
Almost all important politicians are ministers as they will be the ones running the country if they win. Parties also train future leaders through canvassing, committees, debates, helping them gain party and people support through activity.
- 75% of people can’t name their local MP (2013; BBC)
- Starmer refused to run in the 2015 leadership election, citing “lack of experience”
Give an argument against the importance of recruitment of leaders.
Parties are largely concerned with winning elections so leaders often win based on their popularity rather than competence. Leadership elections are also largely based on the membership of the party, so leaders are decided by a miniscule fraction of the electorate, often not representing the general public
- A deciding factor in Blair’s leadership was his personal charisma and how he felt ‘modern’
- Corbyn was voted as Labour leader by 0.5% of the UK electorate so often clashed with the more moderate MPs
How has the representation function of parties changed with time?
Traditionally, parties would represent a section of society - Labour: the working man, Conservative: the landed gentry and aristocrats.
Outline populism and its role in modern politics
A political movement that gains power by telling people what they want to hear and finds support among those that feel unrepresented; a modern growing example would be ReformUK (taking root among the poor (20% of C2DE voters in 2024)), though one could argue its grown into a true political party
What is the other type of growing party in the UK?
Issue parties are also becoming more common, although most still claim to represent the national interest; parties like Green and the Brexit Party are spawning more frequently across the EU even.
Give an argument for the importance of representation.
In a liberal democracy, the prime importance of MPs is as representatives of their constituencies and are prescribed power (legitimacy of rule) on that basis with their mandate. Additionally, as parties move from their traditional ideologies, they become ‘catch-all parties’.
- Starmer’s cabinet has been praised for having more women than any other in history, 46% being women
- Cameron voting for gay marriage act, distances from Thatcherites
Give a counterargument for the importance of representation.
Parties moving away from their traditional links has left many feeling les represented in a ‘mile-wide, inch-deep’ system, with many favouring pressure groups as they are more focussed.
- Protest groups like BLM and Extinction Rebellion are becoming more common
- The Dad Shift and ‘babies on statues’
What is the importance of parties in education?
Outside of campaigns, parties educate people on areas of the political system, issues within it, and how they believe it should be solved, such as with Green Party and the environment and UKIP and the EU.
How is parties’ educational function decaying?
The rise of instant news and pressure groups have undermined patries’ role in education the public
Give an agrument for the importance of participation and mobilisation.
Political parties encourage voters to join and help shape policy or to vote through canvassing, public meeting, advertising, etc.
- Canvassing increases a person’s likelihood to vote by 6% (NIH)
- Roughly 400,000 people became Labour members during the coalition years because they would have more say in policy
Give an agrument against the importance of participation and mobilisation.
Voturnout and loyalty have both gone down, signalling that parties aren’t very consistently proficent at mobilising.
- Conservative membership is down from 3 million in the 50’s, to possibly less than 100,000 (don’t publicize stats)
- 2024 expereinced the lowest turnout since universal suffrage declared, 52% (IPPR)
How do parties organise government?
Parties order their power in the Commons based on the numebr of seats (i.e. their proportion of the UK electorate); largest party runs the government as it has the most true declaration of representing the ‘will of the people’ and the second largest forms the opposition as it represents the second largest ideology. This creates a clean, simple and effectiev system of legislation.
Give an argument for the importance of organisation of government.
Parties are the ones that form the governments and oppositions, giving a degree of stability and scrutiny.
- There has never been an independent PM, and since WWII, the main opposition and government parties are LabCon
- Winner’s bonus often gives the governing a large majority to peacefully pass legislation
Give an argument against the importance of organisation of government.
The decay of party unity since the 1970’s has decreased their ability to peacefully pass legislation and instability can occur even with a large majority.
- Brexit, Iraq, gay marriage, antisemitism
- May’s losing margin of 247.
What are the thre ways that parties are funded in the UK?
- Membership fees: funding from membership subscription
- Donations: money given from individuals, businesses, and institutions and pressure groups
- Grants: a limited amount of public money
What is the main issue with donations?
It gives small groups of people a large degree of control over parties, Labour has long been alleged to be under the thumb of the trade unions (less so with Starmer) and Conservatives under Big Business.
What is ‘Short Money’?
Public money for non-governing parties for Parliamentary duties, dispersed based on a seats and votes in the last election.
What was the drop in proportion of Labour income from trade unions between 2014-16?
50%
(60%-11%)
Outline the basic rules of the PPERA of 2002.
Political Parties, Election and Referenda Act
- All parties must submit audited annual accounts to be made public
- All donations in excess of £500 must be declared and over £7,500 must be placed on a register
- Only donation from those on the electoral roll and from ‘premissible sources’ may be accepted
Give a time when the PPERA was enforced.
In 2017, the Conservatives were fine £70,000 for failing to declaer £104,000 and incorrectly declaring £118,000.
What are the 3 current issues with party funding?
- Large donations give undemocratic influence
- Some donors may expect peerage or knighthood from leaders, also known as ‘cash for honours’
- Parties are becoming less reliant on membership so care less
Give a recent example of a donation scandal.
Lord Ali donated more than £100,000 to Starmer in the form of clothes, box seat football tickets, etc. which went undeclared
Give an example of reliance on donors.
Between October and December 2019 inclusive, the LibDems were donated £8 million by Lord Sainsburys.
How did ‘value per donor’ change between 2017 and 19?
Number of donors was a quarter of previously, but each donation was worth 3x as much
What are the 4 possible funding reforms?
- Impose tighter restictions on size of individual donations
- Impose tighter restrictions on how much parties can spend
- Restrict donations to individuals
- Nationalize funding
What is the argument for funding becoming nationalised?
Big money donations give individuals huge sway within a party, especially during economic crisis when people are less likely to donate; additionally, the mechanisms for state funding are already there with Short Money and Policy Development Grants.
What is the main criticism of funding be nationalised?
Citizens, even wealthy ones, should not be restricted from donationg to causes they believe in, especially given that it is already heavily regulated; additionally, state funding would entrench party strengths as larger parties would recieve more money.
What is the case agaisnt reform of the party funding system?
The system is already heavily regulated so noone can donate too much witgout being known, any further reform only discourages people from donations and lowering participation.
What is a party system?
The number of significant parties in the political system
Give the five types of party systems, with an example.
- One-party: China
- Dominant-party: Scotland
- Two-party: US
- Two-and-a-half-party: currently the UK
- Multi-party: Italy
How can the UK be seen as a two-party system?
Labour and Conservative have dominated the votes for decades, never having less than 80% of seats, with the larger party running the government and the smaller party having special priveliges as opposition, such as more questions at PMQTs
