Will the UK’s two party dominance ever be broken?
Tags: Political System, Voting, UK Politics, Politics

A decade ago it seemed the days of the two party system in the UK were numbered, now it is once again firmly in place. How did this happen?

The 2010 General Election saw a UK political party that wasn't either the Conservatives or Labour in power for the first time in modern history as the Liberal Democrats agreed to form a coalition with the Conservatives, creating the first Coalition Government in the UK since the end of the Second World War. Since the unification of the Social Democratic Party and the Liberal Party in 1988 creating the Liberal Democrats, the new party enjoyed gradual success culminating in the 2010 election in which the Lib Dems achieved 23% of the vote share respectively and were strongly positioned as the third largest national party in Parliament as well as being the junior partners to the Conservatives in the Coalition Government, with leader Nick Clegg as Deputy Prime minister and four other Liberal Democrats given positions within the Cabinet. This seemed to be a turning point in the British political landscape as the ascendency of the Lib Dems into power and their steady electoral success up to this point seemed to indicate that third parties would continue to challenge the power of the two main parties and coalitions would become commonplace rather than out of the ordinary. However a decade and three elections later, the Lib Dems have fallen to the point of near irrelevance after their period in government, and in the most recent election in 2019, Conservatives and Labour combined for over 75% of the vote share, showing that the dominance of the two main parties once again seemingly unassailable. This leads to the question: will this ever change?

It can certainly be argued that the continued success of the two party system is in fact a good thing. The Conservative and Labour parties are well established, and have taken decades to become the well oiled political organisations that they are today, meaning that they are able to have broad manifestos that can appeal to a wider range of voters. To this extent the choice for voters in elections in most cases is restricted to these two parties as in the majority of England there is little hope for third party candidates trying to usurp the big two. This means that the decison for many is simply between Conservatives and Labour who essentially represent the choice between the Left and the Right of the Political spectrum. This clear choice is arguably benefitial for the electorate as it simplifies the decision to some that may have a lesser understanding or interest in politics whilst the history of the two parties allows the electorate to have greater faith in them as they have a better idea of how these parties will perform if they win an election and get into power. Whilst Scotland is a different story with the SNP gaining significant traction and now control 48 of the 59 available Scottish seats, however despite their success they and similar parties in Wales and Northern Ireland are restricted to being regional parties and therefore have no hope of ever being able attract more voters outside of their regions. Other smaller parties such as UKIP, The Brexit Party and the Green Party are based around single issues and despite being able to galvanise supporters around these issues and being sometimes able to influence the bigger parties (i.e The rising support for UKIP forcing the conservatives to hold a referendum on Britains membership in the EU in 2016), these parties have never been able to build up this support on a concentrated national level that would allow them to gain numerous seats in parliament. Therefore, with support for the Liberal Democrats plummeting after their disastrous stint in Government, their is a distinct lack of a competent third national party to challenge the status quo and it is understandable why voters are hesitant to switch their allegiances.

The main obstacle standing in the way of electoral success for third parties is undoubtedly the first past the post voting system used in the UK’s general elections. This voting system puts The Conservatives and Labour at a massive advantage compared to smaller parties as these parties without a strong base are unable to commit the huge resources necessary to run a nationwide campaign that would gain them enough voters to take seats off of the main two parties despite maybe having a decently high share of the vote. For example in 2015 UKIP gained nearly 4 million votes but this was only enough to win them one singular seat in parliament, showing that even if smaller parties are able to gain nationwide support, unless it is concentrated in specific areas of the country this is not enough to translate into electoral success. In this regard whilst first past the post remains the voting system of choice in this country there is little hope that third parties can challenge the main two parties enough to become serious political contenders in general elections. Furthermore even if a smaller party has unique and new policy ideas that allows them to attract new voters, these ideas are often taken by the bigger parties and implemented into their own manifestos. Whilst this is another obstacle for smaller parties electorally as it makes it harder for them to attract voters through new policy ideas, on the other hand it does allow these parties to have an influence on Conservatives and Labour through influencing some of their policies and therefore showing the importance of third parties.

On the whole the future pathway for smaller parties to achieve success on a national scale looks murky. After the EU referendums and the two most recent general elections the UK is clearly a very polarised and divided country and this kind of environment does not suit the smaller parties well as like I said earlier, for many voters in these recent elections the choice was simply between the Torys and Labour leaving little chance for a third contender to emerge and be able to compete across the country. While the UK remains this polarised there is a high risk that the policies of the main two parties will become saturated without any competent national competitors to challenge them and force them to adapt, and based on the current state of the two parties with Labour reeling off an landslide election defeat and the Torys struggling contain the Coronavirus pandemic, this continued saturation would only deepen the distrust in our political system. However whilst the current political conditions are not ideal for third party success, this does not mean that this will always be the case, and in my opinion in the not so distant future we will see smaller parties reorganising and rebounding as they are an essential part to the successful functioning of the UK political system and whilst major electoral success may currently be elusive for these parties, there is no guarantee that this will always be the case.