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The British political system is a multiple-party system [1] and was according to the V-Dem Democracy Indices 2023 the 22nd most electorally democratic in the world. [2] From the 1920s to date, the two dominant parties have been the Conservative Party and the Labour Party.
However, the UK is not quite a two-party system as other parties have significant support. The Liberal Democrats were the third largest party until the 2015 general election when they were overtaken by the Scottish National Party in terms of seats and UK political party membership, and by the UK Independence Party (UKIP) in terms of votes.
A two-party system is a political party system in which two major political parties [a] consistently dominate the political landscape. At any point in time, one of the two parties typically holds a majority in the legislature and is usually referred to as the majority or governing party while the other is the minority or opposition party .
Historically (until 2005, with the sole exception of 1923), the United Kingdom has effectively had a two party system as a result of the First-Past-The-Post system used for general and local elections. Duverger's law certainly seems borne out in the history of British parliamentary politics.
Since the first-past-the-post electoral system is employed in elections, the governing party tends to enjoy a large majority in the Commons; there is often limited need to compromise with other parties. [26] Modern British political parties are so tightly organised that they leave relatively little room for free action by their MPs. [27]
Membership of political parties has been in decline in the UK since the 1950s, falling by over 65% from 1983 (4 per cent of the electorate) to 2005 (1.3 per cent). [1] In 2022, 1.5% of the British electorate were members of the Conservative Party, Labour Party, or the Liberal Democrats. [2]
Two-party system is broken. Electoral reform is needed to break the logjam that is our current two-party system and repair the dysfunction in our democracy. At a minimum, these reforms should ...
The concept was proposed by Jean Blondel in his party system classification (1968), [2] where the two-and-a-half party system occupies middle space between the two-party and multiparty systems. The system was quite rare in the first half of the 20th century, but its popularity grew after the Second World War , and peaked in the 1970s.