Lecture # 3 Elections in Great Britain

The rules

The foundation of the electoral system was laid in 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 its one representative to serve as its Member of Parliament until the next general election. If an MP dies or resigns his seat is held to replace him. Any British person, aged 21 can be nominated as a candidate, except for peers, Church of England clergymen, people sentenced to more than one year's imprisonment. Candidates do not have any party backing. A candidate must also deposit 500 pounds, which is returned if the candidate receives 5 % or more of the votes cast. The maximum sum a candidate may spend on a general election campaign is 4,642 pounds. There is no need to live in the area or to have any connection to it, and in fact less than half of the candidates are in fact local residents. There are usually more than 2 candidates to each seat, but one who receives most votes is elected. Beginning from 1970 the voting age is 18. Voting is not compulsory, but in the autumn of each year every householder is obliged to enter on the register of electors the name of every resident who is over 17 and a citizen of the UK It is only possible to vote at the polling station appropriate to one's address. Anyone who is unable to vote there can send the vote by post. Elections are secret ballot. For electoral purposes Britain is divided into constituencies, each of which has its member in the House of Commons.

How elections work

The most important effect of the electoral system, with each seat won by the candidate with most votes is 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 week's notice, at any time that seems favorable, up to 5 years after the last. At an election people choose a Parliament for 5 years but only one Parliament has lasted its full 5 years since 1945. The shortest elected in 1974, was dissolved 7 months later.

Until 1918 the Conservatives (Tories) and Liberals (Whigs) took turn at holding power, the 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 possibly by divisions among Liberals.

The Political Party System

The party system is an essential element in the working of the Constitution. The parties are not registered or formally recognized in law, but in practice most candidates in elections belong to one of the main parties. Since 1945 either the Conservative Party, whose origin go association for each constituency. The Conservatives have always been the party of the Rights, identified with the existing social order. The Party's MPs alone elect their leader. Conservative values accept leadership in principle, and the party's leader is accepted as the director of its policies. When the party is in power its leader, as Prime Minister, chooses and dismisses ministers, moves them from one department to another, and expects their loyal support. When in Opposition, it is the same with the Shadow Cabinet.

The important function of an association is to choose the party’s candidate for the next election, and then to keep in close touch with him when he is an MP

When a constituency needs anew candidate, there are usually several dozens of applicants, some local people, some from the other areas, most of them already on the national list of approved candidates

Two or three officers of the association may choose up to 20 of the aspirants for preliminary interview. The executive committee hears the aspirants and ask question, then vote by exhaustive ballot until one is the winner.

A) Conservatives

The conservatives have always been the party of the Right, identified with the existing social order. The party's MPs alone elect their leader. Conservative values accept leadership in principle, and the party's leader is accepted as the director of its policies. When the party is in power its leader, as Prime Minister, chooses and dismisses ministers, moves them from one department to another, and expects their loyal support. When in Opposition it is the same with the Shadow Cabinet.

The party's Central Office is responsible to the leader. The MPs are expected to observe discipline and to vote with the party on several nights a week, usually at 10 p. m., and it is assumed that hope of promotion to ministerial office provides them with an incentive for obedience. But there is scope for an MP to try to influence the leader's policies by presenting arguments to Whips and by speaking and seeking support at party MPs' specialist group and at the MPs' weekly general meetings.

Outside Parliament the party has more than a million individual members who pay annual subscriptions, with association for each constituency the most important function of an association is to choose the party's candidate for the next election, and then to keep in close touch with him as an MP if he is elected. The chief officers of the association have most influence; an MP, who abstains or votes the wrong way in Parliament, may be asked to explain that action to a general meeting of the association or of its exclusive committee, and the ultimate sanction is decision to adopt another candidate at the next election.

b) Labour

The Labour Party's internal structure is in most ways like the Conservative's but big difference arise from Labour's attempts to give much more real power to trade unions and ordinary members. Labour's annual conference is the supreme policy-making body of the party, and the parliamentary leaders are expected to follow its general policies when in power or in opposition. At each conference the unions and the other sections of the party elect their twenty-eight representatives on the National Executive Committee (NEC) which makes decisions week by week. The NEC includes the leader and, usually, several ministers or shadow ministers. Relations between the NEC and Labour cabinets in office have often produced bitter arguments, much publicized in the newspapers.

The form of the Labour Party's annual conference reflects the origins of the party as the political arm of the trade unions, when it was formed around 1900. With most of the unions most of the union members are affiliated through the union to the Labour Party. The union pays part of each member's subscription to the party, which derives most of its funds from this source. Each union sends a delegation to the party's annual conference, and at each vote delegates usually vote together as a single «block».

C) The Centre

Before1918 there had never been a centre party in British politics. The new Labour Party had grown up as a small ally of the Liberals, to their left. Between the wars, after a disastrous division of the Liberals, the Labour Party, by then independent took its place as the main alternative to the Conservatives, and the decline of the Liberals as a centre party seemed complete after they split in 1931.

In the 1950s there were about 6 Liberal MPs, elected in remote regions of Great Britain, but in many areas the party ceased to have any effective existence. In the 1960s growing dislike of both major parties helped Liberals to win some by-elections, and these local successes inspired a vigorous revival. At the elections of 1974 Liberals received a 5th of the votes cast, though only a dozen MPs were elected. In 1977-78, when the Labour government lost its overall majority in the Commons, the Liberals gave support to the government, which consulted them in forming its policies. In the period of this «Lib-Lab pact» support for the Liberals, as shown by opinion polls, declined to 5%, but then rose again to between 10 & 15% until 1981.

In 1981 a 2nd centre party was created, the Social Democratic Party. It was inspired by Roy Jenkins, a former Labour moderate, who earlier had held all the highest offices in Labour cabinets except that of Prime Minister. He had then left Parliament and served for 4 years as President of the European Commission. On his return to British politics he was joined by 3 other former Labour cabinet ministers & 20 other Labour MPs in forming the new party, which claimed that, free from the influence of the trade unions and of the left wing, it was the true successor of the Labour Party under its former leadership of Attlee and Gaitskell. The new party was soon joined by many people, including academics, who had not previously been active in party politics.

d) Other Parties

Britain's Green Party was slower to develop than the Greens in some other European countries. At the 1979 election there were 53 Green candidates, and they had on average 1.5% of the votes in the constituencies which they contested. In 1987 there were more than twice as many candidates, and their average vote was the same as eight years before. About 80 times as many people voted for candidates of the centre Alliance, which itself gave strong emphasis to environmental issues.

Until the late 1980s the Communist Party reflected the aims of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. 2 Communists were elected to the House of Commons in 1945, but none since then. Communists and members of other left-wing parties have held influential positions in some trade unions, and the left-wingers who operate within the Labour Party continued to try to promote their aims within it after its main leaders moved towards the centre in 1987-90.