Why British Politics is Not a Two-Party System
| Author | Chris Raymond |
| Published date | 01 December 2016 |
| Date | 01 December 2016 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/2041905816680418 |
28 POLITICAL INSIGHT • DECEMBER 2016
Ahead of the 1964 General
Election, opposition leader Harold
Wilson challenged then Prime
Minister Alec Douglas-Home to
a leaders’ debate. A similar head-to-head took
place in the run up to the 1960 presidential
election in the United States. At the time,
nobody would have thought of inviting other
parties to participate because Labour and
the Conservatives were the only parties that
mattered in British politics, winning roughly 90
per cent of the vote in elections around that
time. When the rst debates took place during
the 2010 campaign, after being bandied
about between Labour and the Conservatives
in nearly every election between 1964 and
2010, three party leaders graced the stage.
Reecting their considerable electoral
potential, the Liberal Democrats were invited
to join Labour and the Conservatives.
When the media sought to recreate the
highlights of the 2010 debates in the build
Why British
Politics is Not a
Two-Party System
British politics has long been cited as a textb ook case of a two-party
system. But is this really the case? Chris Raymond examines the
evidence and finds that Britain increasingly looks like a multi-party
democracy.
up to the 2015 election, the setting had
fragmented even further. Arguments to keep
the UK Independence Party (Ukip) out of the
debates were contradicted by the fact that
the party was poised to place third in the
national vote totals. Once Ukip was admitted,
attention turned to other parties poised to
garner signicant vote and seat shares: the
Scottish National Party (SNP), Plaid Cymru,
and the Greens. One debate featured seven
parties, while another challengers-only debate
saw ve party leaders participate.
The discussion of which parties to include in
debates illustrates a larger question: is British
politics still essentially divided between two
main parties, or is Britain more appropriately
viewed as a multiparty system? Like any good
© Press Association
Political Insight December 2016.indd 28 31/10/2016 14:28
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