Politics of The United Kingdom - Political Parties

Political Parties

Three parties currently dominate the national political landscape in Britain: the Conservative Party, the Labour Party, and the Liberal Democrats.

The modern Conservative Party was founded in 1834 and is an outgrowth of the Tory movement or party, which began in 1678. Today it is still colloquially referred to as the Tory Party and its members as Tories. The Liberal Democrats were formed in 1988 by a merger of the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party (SDP), a Labour breakaway formed in 1981. The Liberals and SDP had contested elections together as the SDP–Liberal Alliance for seven years before. The modern Liberal Party had been founded in 1859 as an outgrowth of the Whig movement or party (which began at the same time as the Tory party and was its historical rival) as well as the Radical and Peelite tendencies.

The Liberal Party was one of the two dominant parties (along with the Conservatives) from its founding until the 1920s, when it rapidly declined and was supplanted on the left by the Labour Party, which was founded in 1900 and formed its first government in 1924. Since that time, the Labour and Conservatives parties have been dominant, with the Liberal Democrats also holding a significant number of seats and increasing their share of the vote in parliamentary general elections in the four elections 1992.

Minor parties also hold seats in parliament:

• The Scottish National Party, founded in 1934, advocates for Scottish independence and has had continuous representation in Parliament since 1967. The SNP currently leads a majority government in the Scottish Parliament.
• Plaid Cymru, the Welsh nationalist party, has had continuous representation in Parliament since 1974. Plaid has the third-largest number of seats in the National Assembly for Wales, after Welsh Labour and the Welsh Conservative & Unionist Party, and participated with the former in the coalition agreement in the Assembly before the 2011 election.
• In Northern Ireland, all 18 MPs are from parties that only contest elections in Northern Ireland (except for Sinn Féin, which contests elections in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland). The unionism Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), the republican Sinn Féin, the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), and the nonsectarian Alliance Party of Northern Ireland all gained seats in Parliament in the 2010 election, the Alliance Party for the first time. Sinn Féin has a policy of abstentionism and so its MPs refuse to take their seats in Parliament. DUP, Sinn Féin, the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), and the SDLP are considered the four major parties in Northern Ireland, holding the most seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly.

In the most recent general election in 2010, the result amounted to a hung parliament, and after several days of negotiations, the Labour Party left the government with the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats operating a coalition government.