The Influence of Minor Parties on UK Politics

 by Naome Dixon

Minor parties are a key part in upholding democracy, as they provide an open choice. However, the two major parties (the Conservative and Labour) are the only parties with a realistic chance at winning a majority in a Westminster general election, leading to some arguing that minor parties are not a powerful force. This perspective arguably ignores the political influence that minor parties can have on the uk political scene, such as pushing for referendums, aiding or hindering a major party winning an election and influencing other parties’ manifestos. Due to these (as well as a plethora of other factors) one can clearly see that minor parties do still have an important status. 

Minor parties can be argued to be influential as they have the power to promote a referendum and this can be seen with the SNP. In 2011, the SNP won a landslide majority of 69 seats in the Scottish parliament, the most the party has ever held in an election (including Holyrood and Westminster). Furthermore, while the SNP does other policies, its main political objective is to achieve Scottish independence. As the Scottish people voted the SNP in with such a strong majority, this gave the SNP a power to pressure the Westminster government into holding a referendum, as they could claim a democratic mandate. This manifested in a referendum held in 2014. However, one could argue that this impact was diminished as the Scottish electorate’s vote resulted in 45%, “no” meaning the SNP didn’t achieve its core objective. However, following SNP’s strong performance in the 2019 general  election, Nicola Sturgeon has called for indyref2 and while this has not resulted in another election, as Boris echos the view of Cameron that the referendum, “settled the issue of Scottish independence for a generation” it still highlights a presence of the SNP on the Westminster government.

Another way that minor parties can be seen to be influential, is the ability to hinder or aid specific parties in securing a  majority and this can be seen in 2019 with the Brexit party. The Brexit party’s core objective was to secure a hard Brexit and to do this, the Conservatives’ manifesto seemed to reflect this due to the “get Brexit done” policy. Conversely, Labour proposed that they would argue a new deal and hold a second referendum on its implementation and arguably this method did not align with the Brexit party’s agenda. Thus, leader Farage offered an electoral pact to the Conservative Party for the 2019 general election. Although this was turned down, the party decided not to stand candidates in constituencies won by Conservative candidates in the previous election. This led to a loss of seats from the Labour Party to the Brexit party, as many traditional working class labour voters did vote to leave (this can in 64% of C2 and DE voters voting to “leave”). Thus this hindered labour’s ability to gain majorities, making the minority party the Brexit party impactful. While the party did fail to win a seat in the 2019 general election, it still achieved its objective of Britain leaving the EU swiftly, through the Conservative win 

Minority parties can also influence the manifesto of mainstream parties and arguably the presence of the UKIP party impacted Cameron's  Tory 2015 manifesto. In 2014, UKIP came first in European Parliament elections, winning 24 seats and 26% of the vote, pushing the Conservatives into third place. This election result signaled to the Conservatives the growing euroscepticism within the electorate. Thus in a bid to not lose votes to the UKIP party, Cameron pragmatically adopted a promise to hold an EU referendum if he one a majority, in his 2015 manifesto. Cameron did win a majority and he followed his promise through, campaigning for “remain”. However the referendum resulted in a 52% leave result, meaning the UKIP party achieved its main objective (much to the despair of Cameron who resigned shortly after the referendum). Although the party has now faded into obscurity (with the departure of the leader Nigel Darge in 2016 and a lack of a clear purpose) UKIP did achieve its core objective to leave the EU in 2016 (this was completed in 2020) making the party influential. 

In conclusion, one can see how although minor parties may not have the electoral ability to win a Westminster election, they still play an important role within the UK political ecosystem.