The other parties

There are other political parties within the UK. The Green party offers economic and industrial policies that relate directly to the environment. The Scottish Nationalist Party wants independence for Scotland within the European Community. Plaid Cymru - the Welsh Nationalist Party - is determined to preserve the Welsh language and culture as the foundation of a distinctive Welsh identity within the UK. Its radical wing has resorted to arson attempts as a means of protest.

The Protestant community in Northern Ireland is represented at Westminster by MPs who are in favour of the maintenance of Northern Ireland as part of the UK. They belong to the Ulster Unionist, the Ulster Popular Unionist and the Ulster Democratic Unionist parties. The Catholic minority are represented by the SDLP: the Social Democratic Labour Party. Provisional Sinn Fein are the political wing of the Irish Republican Army (the IRA), who campaign openly, sometimes by force, for the withdrawal of British troops from Northern Ireland.

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