Quick questions on Established and minor UK parties and the party system - Edexcel A-Level Politics Component 1

The Conservatives evolved from the early nineteenth-century Tory Party. The One Nation tradition, associated with Disraeli, accepts a degree of state intervention and social obligation to hold society together. From the late 1970s the New Right (Thatcherism) combined neo-liberal free-market economics (privatisation, deregulation, lower taxes) with neo-conservative social authoritarianism (tough on law and order, traditional values). Current policy leans toward lower taxes and a smaller state, firm law and order, conditional welfare and a sovereigntist foreign policy, though the balance between One Nation and New Right shifts over time.

Labour grew from the trade union movement and socialist societies around 1900. Old Labour stood for social democracy: nationalisation (the original Clause IV), strong trade unions, redistribution and a large welfare state. New Labour under Blair and Brown (from 1994) embraced the Third Way, accepting the market and rewriting Clause IV while investing in public services. Since 2010 the party has moved between a more left-wing programme under Corbyn and a return to the centre under Starmer.

The Liberal Democrats were formed in 1988 from the merger of the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party. They combine economic liberalism (free markets with a safety net) and social liberalism (civil liberties, constitutional reform, internationalism, environmentalism). They governed in coalition with the Conservatives from 2010 to 2015, which damaged them electorally, before recovering ground.

Smaller parties win a large and rising share of the national vote; the SNP dominates Scotland; the devolved parliaments use proportional systems (AMS in Scotland and Wales, STV in Northern Ireland) that routinely produce multi-party and coalition government; and the 2010 to 2015 coalition showed multi-party government even at Westminster.

First-past-the-post squeezes smaller parties, so the Conservatives and Labour still take the overwhelming majority of Commons seats and almost always form single-party governments. On this view Westminster remains a two-party system with a multi-party periphery.

Explain and analyse three reasons why minor parties find it hard to win seats at Westminster. [9 marks]

Evaluate the view that the two main parties still dominate UK politics. [30 marks]