Government and Politics of United Kingdom

UK Elections

United Kingdom

The Rules The foundations of the electoral system were laid in the Middle Ages. Since then numerous Acts of Parliament have modified the system, but never in a systematic way. Fundamentally the system still has its ancient form, with each

community electing its (now) one representative to serve as its Member of Parliament until the next general election. If an MP dies or resigns his seat, a by- election is held to replace him. Any British subject can be nominated as a candidate for any seat on payment of a deposit of £500, though peers and Church of England clergymen are disqualified from sitting in the House of Commons. There is no need to live in the area or to have any personal connection with it, and less than half of the candidates are in fact local residents. There are usually more than two candidates for each seat, but the one who receives most votes is elected. A large proportion are elected with less than half of the votes cast. The franchise (right to vote) became universal for men by stages in the nineteenth century; hence the rise of the Labour Party. Women's suffrage came in two stages (1918 and 1928), and in 1970 the minimum voting age was reduced to eighteen. Voting is not compulsory, but in the autumn of each year every householder is obliged by law to enter on the register of electors the name of every resident who is over seventeen and a UK citizen. Much work is done to ensure that the register is complete and accurate, and each register is valid for one year beginning towards the end of February. People who are just too young to vote are included in the list, so that they may vote at any election which may be held after their eighteenth birthdays. It is only possible to vote at the polling station appropriate to one's address. Anyone who expects to be unable to vote there may apply in advance to be allowed to send the vote by post. In 1974-83 there were 635 MPs for the UK, each representing one 'constituency'; in 1983 the number was increased to 650. Because some areas increase in population while others decline, the electoral map, or division of the whole country into constituencies, has to be changed from time to time so as to prevent gross inequalities of representation. The maximum interval between 'redistributions' is set by law at fifteen years -each time subject to Parliament's approval. How Elections Work The most important effect of the electoral system, with each seat won by the candidate with most votes, has been to sustain the dominance of two main rival parties, and only two. One forms the Government, the other the Opposition, hoping to change places after the next general election. The Prime Minister can choose the date of an election, with only three or four weeks' notice, at any time that seems favourable, up to five years after the last. At an election the people choose 'a Parliament' for five years and no more; but only one 'Parliament', so defined, has lasted its full five years since 1945. The shortest, elected in February 1974, was dissolved seven months later. The development of opinion polls gives the Prime Minister a good idea of his or her party's chances, month by month. Until 1918 the Conservatives (Tories) and Liberals (formerly Whigs) took turns at holding power, then Conservatives and Labour. The Labour Party, formed

in 1900 in alliance with the Liberals, replaced them as the second major party after 1918. Labour's success was made possible by divisions among the Liberals. Between 1945 and 1987 there were thirteen general elections. No party ever received as many as half of the votes cast, but twelve of the elections gave an overall majority of seats to Labour (5) or Conservative (7); the winning party's percentage of the votes varied from thirty-nine per cent to forty-nine per cent. The exception was in February 1974 when the biggest party in the House of Commons, Labour, had only 301 seats out of 635. A minority Labour government took power. After only seven months Prime Minister Wilson called a second election, in the hope of obtaining an overall majority. With Labour winning 319 seats he just succeeded, though Labour had less than two-fifths of the votes. Within two years Labour had lost five seats at by-elections, but stayed in office as a minority government through an agreement with the Liberals. This was not a coalition, but the only period since 1931 in which a governing party relied on the support of another to remain in power. This two-year period of minority rule was difficult for the Labour government, but Mr Callaghan, who had by then succeeded Mr Wilson as Prime Minister, could see from the opinion polls and occasional by-elections that Labour would probably lose any new general election if he used his right to dissolve Parliament. In March 1979 he was obliged to do so, at a time which he had not chosen, because his Government was defeated by one vote on a vote of confidence. The election which followed gave Mrs Thatcher's Conservatives a majority of 45 over all other parties combined. The Liberals had only eleven seats, the Scottish Nationalists three, the Welsh one. The two-party system seemed restored to its normal form, at least in terms of seats in the House of Commons. Mrs Thatcher called the next elections at four-yearly intervals, and won them both easily. Although the Parliaments of 1979, 1983 and 1987 were dominated by a government faced by a big opposition party, with a few seats held by minor parties, a study of the figures shows how this pattern did not at all reflect the people's votes. The electoral system caused dramatic distortions, most particularly in 1983. By then the Liberals had formed an alliance with a new centre party, the Social Democratic Party (SDP). This alliance won almost as many votes as Labour, but Labour won almost ten times as many seats. The figures for the south of England were even more remarkable. In this area, covering nearly half of England's population, the Alliance's candidates (Liberals and Social Democrats) received almost 50 per cent more votes than Labour, but won only seven seats to Labour's twenty-nine. Labour's support was concentrated in parts of London, where it won some of its seats with big majorities. Outside London and the few big towns most Alliance candidates won at least twice as many votes as Labour. The 1987 election produced results not greatly different from those of 1983, though Labour's share of the UK vote rose from 27.6 to 30.8 per cent, and the Alliance's share fell from 25.4 to 22.6. Labour's seats increased from 209 to 229, the Alliance's dropped from 23 to 22. Labour's biggest gains, in terms of votes, were in the
 
big towns of Scotland and the north, in places with above average unemployment, in seats which they had already won in 1983. Although Labour's small gain in votes between 1983 and 1987 was about equal to the Alliance's loss, it was not accounted for simply by people changing votes from Alliance to Labour. The shifts were in fact very complex, with big variations between constituencies. But overall the pattern established in 1983 survived, with almost a two-party parliament, and a government party holding a hundred more seats than all the rest lordlier on the basis of a minority of votes. The allied centre parties may have become the main alternative to the Conservatives in the south in the 1980s, but their achievement was made useless by the electoral system. Their supporters were too widely spread, mainly in areas where the Conservatives were stronger; so t hey won few seats. Labour‘s support is concentrated in areas where the party can win seats; it does Labour no harm if it is the third party instead of being second, in terms of votes, in areas where the Conservatives are sure to win in any case. The two-party system which is the essential feature of modern British government is a product of the electoral system, rather than a reflection of the wishes of the people. Many opinion polls, over many years, have indicated that most of the British people would prefer to use their most fundamental right, that of voting, in a system which would give fair representation. But both Conservatives and Labour claim that the existing electoral system is better than any other, and have produced objective arguments for it and the two-party dominance which it sustains. First, all the people of each constituency have one MP to represent them and their interests. Second, the system gives the people a clear choice between two alternative sets of leaders and policies. Third, it gives stable government for up to five years at a time. Fourth, because any person with realistic political ambitions must join one of the two main parties, each party includes a wide range of attitudes. Therefore, fifth, each party's programme, being a compromise, is likely to avoid extremes - and a government knows that within five years of taking power it must again face the judgment of the voters. On the other hand it is pointed out that two-party choice at an election may be no better than a choice between two evils. Ministers of both parties, once in office, have developed a habit of claiming that at the last election the people voted to approve of every item in the winning party's election manifesto - although the truth is that only about two-fifths voted for the party, and many of these were more against the losers than for the winners. The claims about moderation, once well founded, have become less convincing in the past twenty years or so.