Green candidate Hannah Spencer, plumber, plasterer, politician, has succeeded in the admirable task of winning the 26 February Gorton and Denton by-election, with 40.7 per cent of the vote, while Reform beat Labour to second place and the Conservatives lost their deposit. The conclusions to be drawn are manifest. The Guardian notes that voters are turning away from the two main parties, and declares “the collapse of two-party politics,” citing Professor Sir John Curtice (the wizened face of British psephology), who proclaimed that “the duopoly that has long dominated British postwar politics has never looked weaker.” Vive la resistance, folks.
It is now irrefutable that our politics is operating not with two parties, but with many. Which prompts the question: what is going to happen after the next election?
Almost one in five seats in this parliament were won by majorities of less than five per cent: the House of Commons is incredibly marginal. And given how mercurial the electorate’s voting intentions are, it’s not impossible that a great deal of those seats could flip at the next election.
Labour polling figures have been in sharp decline, but now they, the Greens, and Reform are all fishing in the same pond. Zack Polanski wants the support of the 99 per cent, Nigel Farage lionises the everyday people, and Keir Starmer (or whoever becomes his successor) needs the Red Wall, Labour’s core base. In the north of England, these parties are separated by six per cent in the polls. It won’t take much for one party to take these seats, marginal as many of them are — and which party that is could easily vary from seat to seat.
In Westminster’s First-Past-the-Post system, a majority government is formed when one party wins at least 326 seats. When they fall just short, they tend to form a coalition with a smaller party (see the Tory-DUP coalition in 2017, or the Tory-Lib Dem coalition in 2010).
If the SNP take Scotland as they did in 2015, Plaid Cymru sweep Labour seats in Wales, and seats in England are divided relatively evenly between five parties (Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat, Reform, Green), there will be no functioning government. There will be no obvious government-in-waiting, as with Theresa May’s 318-seat Tory party in 2017. The smaller parties won’t be much smaller, and, while not expecting the Prime Ministership, will rightly recognise the great deal of influence they hold.
In an article defending our electoral system, Gaby Hinsliff argues that the choice is between rival factions within a party or rival parties themselves. That makes sense. But the fact is that rival parties now exist, and are putting a lot of effort into ripping the others to shreds – Keir Starmer says Zack Polanski is “high on drugs” and Nigel Farage says the Conservatives are dead (which doesn’t stop him from nicking the carcasses): no mergers seem forthcoming. So what happens? A minority government with a 250-seat party? Or an unhappy marriage-of-inconvenience between party leaders who will have spent the last five years slagging each other off?
Our electoral system is often praised as providing stable governments when others don’t. It’s now about to deliver the most tempestuous government since Liz Truss typed in ‘Thatcherism’ on WikiHow. It’s multi-party politics with a two-party system. It’ll be chaos. Anyone for popcorn?
Photo by paul silvan on Unsplash
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The Forthcoming Chaos of Multi-Party Politics within a Two-Party System
Green candidate Hannah Spencer, plumber, plasterer, politician, has succeeded in the admirable task of winning the 26 February Gorton and Denton by-election, with 40.7 per cent of the vote, while Reform beat Labour to second place and the Conservatives lost their deposit. The conclusions to be drawn are manifest. The Guardian notes that voters are turning away from the two main parties, and declares “the collapse of two-party politics,” citing Professor Sir John Curtice (the wizened face of British psephology), who proclaimed that “the duopoly that has long dominated British postwar politics has never looked weaker.” Vive la resistance, folks.
It is now irrefutable that our politics is operating not with two parties, but with many. Which prompts the question: what is going to happen after the next election?
Almost one in five seats in this parliament were won by majorities of less than five per cent: the House of Commons is incredibly marginal. And given how mercurial the electorate’s voting intentions are, it’s not impossible that a great deal of those seats could flip at the next election.
Labour polling figures have been in sharp decline, but now they, the Greens, and Reform are all fishing in the same pond. Zack Polanski wants the support of the 99 per cent, Nigel Farage lionises the everyday people, and Keir Starmer (or whoever becomes his successor) needs the Red Wall, Labour’s core base. In the north of England, these parties are separated by six per cent in the polls. It won’t take much for one party to take these seats, marginal as many of them are — and which party that is could easily vary from seat to seat.
In Westminster’s First-Past-the-Post system, a majority government is formed when one party wins at least 326 seats. When they fall just short, they tend to form a coalition with a smaller party (see the Tory-DUP coalition in 2017, or the Tory-Lib Dem coalition in 2010).
If the SNP take Scotland as they did in 2015, Plaid Cymru sweep Labour seats in Wales, and seats in England are divided relatively evenly between five parties (Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat, Reform, Green), there will be no functioning government. There will be no obvious government-in-waiting, as with Theresa May’s 318-seat Tory party in 2017. The smaller parties won’t be much smaller, and, while not expecting the Prime Ministership, will rightly recognise the great deal of influence they hold.
In an article defending our electoral system, Gaby Hinsliff argues that the choice is between rival factions within a party or rival parties themselves. That makes sense. But the fact is that rival parties now exist, and are putting a lot of effort into ripping the others to shreds – Keir Starmer says Zack Polanski is “high on drugs” and Nigel Farage says the Conservatives are dead (which doesn’t stop him from nicking the carcasses): no mergers seem forthcoming. So what happens? A minority government with a 250-seat party? Or an unhappy marriage-of-inconvenience between party leaders who will have spent the last five years slagging each other off?
Our electoral system is often praised as providing stable governments when others don’t. It’s now about to deliver the most tempestuous government since Liz Truss typed in ‘Thatcherism’ on WikiHow. It’s multi-party politics with a two-party system. It’ll be chaos. Anyone for popcorn?
Photo by paul silvan on Unsplash
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