Bi-partisan politics is a key feature of what is known among political scientists as the ‘Westminster model’. The ‘first past the post’ electoral system for parliamentary elections in the United Kingdom is, in short, responsible for this particular political dynamic. The way in which votes are counted up ensures that only two parties will earn significant representation within the House of Commons, one of which will naturally have a majority. Because there is no need for agreement across parties in order to pass a bill, this scarcely ever happens. Any debate essentially becomes channeled in the mindset of “them against us”.
Most academic essays agree that the alternative consensus model-one of coalitional governments- leads to better policy results than its divided alternative. For budding democracies, a system which works on the basis of the opposition of a sole party against another is considered as dangerous, and rightly so. Countries which do not have a democratic tradition, and within which ethnic separations run deep, can only suffer from institutions which enhance these rivalries.
Despite these qualms, the United Kingdom has been held up for centuries past as the model of a well functioning democracy. The question of reforming the count of votes, however, have become more prominent since New Labour’s arrival in government. Devolution to Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales has experimented with different voting systems, introducing what is known as the Single Transferable Vote (STV), and results from the European Parliament elections accounted for via proportional representation.
Additionally, the epitome of the Westminster model now finds itself on the brink of having to cope with an election outcome which will require compromise and coalition building. Left-leaning newspapers have this week been highlighting the ever-growing probability of a hung parliament-a case where the leading party has not enough seats to secure a majority- occurring in the upcoming elections, which are predicted to take place on May 6th. The Conservative’s lead is narrow; according to BBC reports at the time of writing, nearing the 2 per cent.
What would happen in the case of a hung parliament is an interesting matter. To the contrary of what most of the electorate believes, the Prime Minister can only be removed from office only when it is clear that there no longer exists a majority capable of supporting his position. If this procedure was thus followed, this would give Gordon Brown an advantageous opportunity to form a government in cooperation with the Liberal Democrats, and hence signal the fall of bi-partisan politics in the United Kingdom.
No related posts.