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Do we still have a two-party system in Britain?

Britain has frequently been described as having a two party system. This could be deemed as being an accurate description of the party system in Britain from the 18th century until well into the post-war period. As will be described below this was a well established if not completely accurate depiction of the party system in Britain. However stating from the 1960s there have been some striking changes to the British party that has led to the validity of the notion that it is a two party system being questioned. These changes included the willingness of third parties to contest more seats at elections, changes in the regional support for the two main parties and changes in electoral behavior. The reasons for and against Britain having a two party system are examined in full below.

Originally the two parties that made up the two party system were the Conservatives and Liberals that alternated terms in office and opposition between them. The Liberals had been the governing party for much of the 19th century. However after its landslide victory of 1906 it began a long period of decline (Cook, 1998 p.40). The two party system in Britain then changed with the emergence of the Labour Party and the partition of Ireland which had the combined affect of furthering weakening the Liberals. The Liberals had relied upon Labour and Irish Nationalist support after the elections of 1910 had reduced its majority, support that was no longer available from 1918. Until 1929 Britain briefly had a three party system with the Labour Party eventually replacing the Liberals as the second main party in a changed two party system (Cook, 1998 p. 106).

Even at this point the disproportionate nature of the first past the post electoral system was noticeable in promoting and maintaining a two party system in Britain which made it difficult for third parties to succeed. The system works against third parties unless they have concentrated support in a few constituencies rather than evenly spread support across the whole of the country. The Liberals not surprisingly have supported the adoption of a system of Proportional Representation from the 1930s as a way to replace the two party system with a three party or multi party system and to have a number of seats that reflects their level of support. Whilst Labour and the Conservatives generally favour the first past the post system that has maintained a two party system for so long. That is due to the first past the post system usually giving one of the two main parties an overall majority with the exception of February 1974. Labour managed to gain a small majority in the October 1974 election yet continued from 1977 only with the help of the Lib-Lab pact and deals with the Welsh and Scottish Nationalists. The Callaghan government fell because it failed to live up to those deals and lost the support of the Liberals and Nationalists alongside the industrial unrest reflected in the ‘Winter of Discontent’ (Forman and Baldwin, 1996 p. 37).

Yet in 1950 the possibility of either the Liberals or the Welsh or Scottish nationalists affecting or challenging the Conservative and Labour dominated two party system seemed remote. In 1950 the Liberals, SNP (Scottish Nationalist Party) and Plaid Cymru did not have enough resources or candidates to contest all the seats across all of Britain, Scotland and Wales respectively. By 2001 all these parties were able to contest all the seats that they wanted to gain. This has had an important impact on the two party system in Britain, taking votes and seats from Labour and Conservative. Whereas Liberal and later Liberal Democrat or Scottish and Welsh nationalist supporters had either to vote Conservative or Labour or not vote at all because their preferred party did not have a candidate in their constituency. However the increase in third party candidates meant that they could vote for their first choice candidate (Denver, 2003 p.1). Whilst the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish and Welsh nationalists at least doubled the share of their votes between 1950 and 1997 that had little overall impact on the number of seats that the Conservatives and Labour held (Johnston, Pattie, Dorling and Rossiter, 2001 p.4).

The notion of the two party system in Britain was linked to the ideas of class alignment and voting behaviours. The Labour and Conservative parties were the two main parties as they represented the two main classes, the working class and the middle class respectively. Whilst the Liberals plus the Scottish and Welsh nationalists could be regarded as suffering the electoral disadvantage that they did not represent any particular class. To gain or retain power Labour had to keep the majority of working class votes whilst attracting enough middle class support away from the Conservatives and vice versa. Political scientists have often argued that the years between 1950 and 1970 was an ‘era of alignment’ when the link between class status and voting behaviour was at its strongest. Perhaps coincidentally or not it was also the period when the number of seats won by third parties were at its lowest. Voters chose the party that best represented their class and the values of their peers and relatives. The two parties had their areas of strength such as the north of England and Wales for Labour, the South East of England for the Conservatives yet invariably the other party was the second placed party in such regions. There where also regions and constituencies were the level of support was more balanced and these marginal areas were important in deciding the outcomes of elections (Denver, 2003 p. 49).

Since the 1970s however the link between social class and voting behaviour has been reduced yet certainly not broken in the process known as partisan de-alignment. The Conservatives were especially successful at gaining working class support in the general elections between 1979 and 1992. However that extra support dropped with the re-emergence of Labour credibility after 1992 and the poor performance of the Major government that lost its own credibility due to divisions over Europe (Forman and Baldwin, 1996 p. 48). Conversely landslide election victories of 1997 and 2001 for Labour was boosted by a large swing of middle class support away from Conservative to Labour (King, 2002 p.170).
The two party system has changed for various reasons and in various ways. It is no longer the case that the Conservatives and Labour will finish in first and second place in every constituency across Britain. Conservative support in particular declined in Scotland and Wales to be taken by the Liberals, SNP and Plaid Cymru. The Conservatives had until the 1950s held the majority of Scottish seats and a distant second to Labour in Wales. However support for the Conservatives ebbed away as many voters felt that they did not care for Scotland and Wales whilst support for devolution or independence increased especially when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister (Denver, 2003 p. 10). A legacy of the Thatcher years was that the Conservatives did not hold a single seat in Scotland and Wales with the Liberal Democrats and nationalists gaining some support from Labour as voters believed that Labour could not regain power at Westminster. Labour’s commitment and establishment of devolution in Scotland and Wales to some extent stopped it from losing too much support (Johnston, Pattie, Dorling and Rossiter, 2001 p.196).

The Liberal Democrats have also become the second placed party in many parts of England do not wish to support Labour and the Conservatives at all. England in many respects has remained a country with a two party system although sometimes it is a choice between Liberal Democrat and Conservative, or between Liberal Democrats and Labour rather than just between Labour and Conservative. In some constituencies especially marginal ones it can be a three or four way contest. In Scotland and Wales it is important to take note of the affects that proportional representation has had upon Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly elections. Instead of a two party system both are more effectively a four party system, even the Conservatives have gained seats. These elections are further indications that introducing proportional representation would end the two party system in Britain, meaning that third parties such as the Liberal Democrats would have a greater influence on the way the country is governed (King, 2001 p.47). The Liberal Democrats have also argued that not only would electoral reform end the two party system it would also reduce the chances of unpopular policies being carried out by a single party that the majority of voters opposed. Thus perhaps avoiding another poll tax or invasion of Iraq (Farrell, 2001, p.65).

The two party system has been affected by the emergence of tactical voting. Tactical voting had been a feature of the Liberal / Liberal Democrat and Scottish or Welsh nationalist by election victories since the 1960s. By elections usually take place when the governing party are unpopular or the main opposition party are seen as ineffective, situations apparent in the 1980s and after 1997 except with the positions of the Conservatives and Labour reversed. Tactical voting is a means of not only protesting against an unpopular government but also as a means of removing one as well. The 1997 election was the most spectacular example of tactical voting achieving such a result, a disaster for the Conservatives worse than 1906, 1945 and 1966. Tactical voting helped to sweep Labour to power yet it also doubled the number of Liberal Democrat MPs on a lower share of the vote from 1992 and much lower than the peak of Liberal / SDP Alliance popularity in 1983 (Denver, 2003 p. 163). Labour suffered in the 2005 election from the effects of tactical voting, protest votes and Labour voters not voting in protest against the war in Iraq. The 2005 election results were certainly cause for celebration for the Liberal Democrats as their tally of 62 seats was the highest number for a third party since the deceptive Liberal revival of 1929 (The Guardian, Friday May 6 2005, Times on Line December 7 2005).

Overall the two party system could still be argued to exist in Britain although it has undoubtedly changed and could be replaced by a multi party system if proportional representation was adopted for Westminster elections. In Scotland and Wales the two party system has been replaced with a four party system with Labour dominant, Liberal Democrats and nationalists contending for second position and the Conservatives usually trailing in last place. However whilst both the Conservatives and Labour still achieve working majorities through the first past the post system they are highly unlikely to reform the electoral system and thus deprive themselves of being able to govern the country on a minority of the vote. The first past the post system distorts the balance between the number of votes cast and seats won in favour of the largest two parties giving the impression that the two party system is as strong as ever. When it has in fact declined with the greater participation of third parties in elections plus protest and tactical voting. The present system can give one party or another a huge majority that can take three or four elections to overturn as in 1983 and 1997. Whilst a series of closely fought elections could bring about the hung parliament that could lead to electoral reform although that was not the case in 1977 when Labour lost its majority. It is clear however that the Conservatives and Labour could not repeat their almost universal electoral support of the 1950s and early 1960s, especially as the Liberal Democrat gains of 2005 made it the most successful third party since 1929.

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