In Focus: The Revival of Two-Party Politics in Britain
| Author | Benjamin D. Hennig,Danny Dorling |
| Published date | 01 December 2018 |
| Date | 01 December 2018 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/2041905818815193 |
20 POLITICAL INSIGHT • DECEMBER 2018
In Focus
The Revival of Two-
Party Politics in Britain
Until recently, there was much
talk that the two-party system
of British politics was broken,
possibly forever. In 2015,
just two-thirds of the electorate voted
Conservative or Labour. But in the 2017
General Election, the two major parties
won over 82 per cent of the vote between
them.
The return of the two party model has
come at a time of great political turbulence in
Britain. Although a Conservative party leader
has occupied 10 Downing Street since 2010,
their political power and approval within the
British electorate has neither at any point
been strong nor stable over the last eight
years.
This analysis looks at the monthly polling
data of all major political parties since May
2010 until the end of September 2018. (UKIP’s
polling data covers dates from March 2012,
the Green Party from June 2012 as it was only
from then that voting intentions for these
parties were both routinely asked.) Below,
each circular dot is the simple arithmetic
average of all publicly reported opinion polls
taken in that month in the UK. The average
level of support as a proportion of all those
who say they have a political preference is
shown on the y-axis of the graphs, and is
plotted against the rate of change in that
support shown on the x-axis.
The most recent data appears darkest in
each graph, while the colours slowly fade
the further back the dots go in time. This
allows us to show the dynamic nature of the
intended voting behaviour revealed by the
electorate in polls in a way that concentrates
attention on what matters most of all in
politics: change.
On the bigger picture, the graphs show the
temporary points of stability around which
public opinion appears to oscillate until
something big happens and that collective
opinion is jolted in another direction, at
which point it appears to try and settle down
again. When looking at polling drawn in this
kind of way it appears as if the voting public
are enacting the collective machinations of a
hive mind, coming to a settled view for a time
before a chunk of voters or potential voters
break away, change their minds, and then
opinion settles again for a few months or
even years around what appears to be a xed
level of support with only little change.
Within the time period shown here the
most momentous change related to Britain’s
current political situation is mirrored in the
changing support for UKIP. UKIP hit their
maximum near 17 per cent support in
June 2016 – exactly at the point of the EU
referendum. As of September 2018, their
support was at ve per cent and falling. Their
big fall in support from March to May 2017
was when the Conservative vote share rose.
UKIP votes went mostly to the Tories in the
run up to the general election. Some 90
per cent of UKIP voters have been revealed
by surveys to be Conservative supporters
that were lured by UKIP’s single policy issue.
The belief that it was Labour that had lost
support to UKIP and which could gain from
recruiting their supporters turns out to have
been unfounded. The same was true of the
National Front (NF) in the late 1970s who saw
their vote collapse into the Conservative win
of 1979, which was bolstered by NF voters.
The British National Party (BNP) played a
similar role of weaning votes most away from
the Conservative party which then mostly
returned to that party at various points
between 2001 and 2010.
The Conservative graph shows that there
were three key periods when their show in
the polls hovered around 36 per cent; then
32 per cent; then 40 per cent. After a brief but
insucient rise in spring 2017, the Tory vote
has dropped back nearer or just below the 40
per cent level.
The Labour surge in the run up to the last
General Election, from April to June 2017
reveals a shift in public opinion at a speed
and of an extent that has never happened
before so quickly for any party – ever. Today,
Labour hover at around 38 per cent. For
Labour to win a possible upcoming election
would require that election being held at a
time coincident with a sympathetic trajectory
of these phase-space curves. While the
party has demonstrated before that such
a substantial swing is possible from much
lower levels of support in the opinion polls,
we have no idea whether Labour could do
this again, so quickly, from the higher base of
38 per cent that they now oscillate around.
If Labour cannot achieve a similar swing in
future then they could well rely on the SNP
to form a coalition (we have no space here to
show the trajectories of SNP voting or other
smaller parties). The Liberal Democrats as
well as the Green Party show much smaller
Benjamin D. Hennig and Danny Dorling plot the re-emergence of
Conservative and Labour dominance in British politics.
Political Insight December 2018.indd 20 01/11/2018 09:02
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