Political Parties Of The United Kingdom

How an Empire ends U.K. Politics

God Save the King?

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Ten political parties are represented in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, with a further two formerly represented in the European Parliament and quite a few more with representation at a local level. As elections to the Parliament of the United Kingdom are operated under a 'first past the post system' and elections to the Parliament of the European Union were operated under a proportional representation system (PR), minor parties who have support spread throughout the country, but not enough concentrated support to win an entire constituency, can often find representation in the EU. For this reason, the United Kingdom Independence Party and the British National Party had MEPs but no MPs. Likewise, the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments have their own form of PR, and the Northern Irish Assembly is designed to reflect the complexity of NI viewpoints.

There are five legislative bodies in the United Kingdom alongside the European Parliament which are made up of officials elected by residents of the United Kingdom who hold citizenship to the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, or any Commonwealth nation. The House of Commons, located in London, England, is the primary governing body in the United Kingdom responsible for creating and upholding national law, except for areas devolved to the constituent nations, and with the power to alter and repeal those brought into effect by its devolved counterparts. Elections to the House of Commons take place once every five years under a first-past-the-post system. Members of the House of Lords are unelected; rather, they are made Lords and Ladies for their services, or for otherwise being incredibly rich.

Members of the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales, the London Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly can be voted for by the aforementioned citizens living within jurisdiction of the legislative body concerned, each devolved body using a variation of the proportional representation system. Elections to the devolved Parliament and Assemblies take place once every four years.

Major parties[edit]

Labour Party[edit]

Members of the House of Commons: 404

Members of the House of Lords: 177

Scottish Parliament: 22

Welsh Parliament: 30

The Labour Party is the current ruling party since its landslide victory in the 2024 general election. Founded as a socialist party, the Labour Party had a huge role in the creation of the Welfare State and the National Health Service. After nearly two decades of Conservative rule, the Labour Party moved much closer to the centre, stepping away from its socialist roots and becoming a "big tent" centrist party. This step clearly made them an electable opposition, as they won in a massive landslide in 1997, but it's now somewhat unclear exactly what they stand for other than "we're nicer and less right-wing than those bastard Tories". Former leader Jeremy Corbyn, while restoring self-belief among the party faithful, appeared less popular among the general public (mainly due to being seen as a huge antisemite and a quasi communist) - and they're the ones who decide elections. Notable Labour figures include Clement Attlee, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Jeremy Corbyn, current Prime Minister Keir Starmer and a wealth of celebrity supporters.

Conservative Party[edit]

Members of the House of Commons: 121

Members of the House of Lords: 271

Scottish Parliament: 31

Welsh Parliament: 16

The Conservative Party, officially the "Conservative & Unionist Party", and commonly known as "The Tory Party" or "the Tories" is the other of the two largest political parties in the United Kingdom. Since World War Two, every Prime Minister has come from the Conservative Party or the Labour Party. Generally standing for lower taxation, a smaller state and lower welfare, the Conservative Party is the traditional right-wing party in the UK. It was most recently in power under various leaders from 2010 to 2024. Given that the Conservative Party vehemently opposed almost all of Blair's early manifesto promises and that the party leadership has now accepted many of them (minimum wage, Bank of England independence, civil partnerships, various anti-discrimination laws), the party can be quite fractured at times, with a significant minority being very much opposed to membership of the European Union. Notable figures include Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher, David Cameron, Theresa May, and Boris Johnson.

Liberal Democrats[edit]

Members of the House of Commons: 72

Members of the House of Lords: 78

Scottish Parliament: 4

Welsh Parliament: 1

The Liberal Democrats, frequently known as the Lib Dems, were traditionally the third party in the United Kingdom but severely reduced their MPs and popular vote in the 2015 General Election. Their predecessors the Liberal Party declined severely before World War Two as the Labour Party took over as the main left-wing party. The Liberals were not a strong serious force in British politics, but they merged with the Social Democrat Party (a splinter group of the Labour Party) in 1988 to form the Liberal Democrats. The Liberal Democrats were hugely popular among students and have often been the go-to 'protest vote' of the middle classes. They also maintain traditional support bases among the elderly, and in areas such as the West Country. Advocating progressive taxation, nuclear disarmament and electoral reform, the Liberal Democrats saw a large surge in support as they were the only major party to seriously oppose the Iraq War. In a weird twist, they formed a coalition government with the Conservative Party in 2010, with the idea of 'taking the edge' off the Tory spending cuts and making them fairer for the poor. Their complete failure to do this severely damaged their support among students, public sector workers, all those affected by the budget cuts; they lost them a lot of support at local government level, losing them control of many local councils. in the 2015 election they lost nearly two-thirds of their support, and lost nearly 50 MPs. In 2019, they gained popularity for their strong anti-Brexit stance, and in 2024 they got their best result ever, taking many seats in the traditionally Tory "blue wall." Notable figures include Nick Clegg, Charles Kennedy (the UK's favourite alcoholic), Vince Cable (leader from 2017 - 2019), Jo Swinson (leader from July - December 2019), the bizarre Lembit Opik and former leader Paddy Ashdown, who effectively ran Bosnia for a four year period.

Minor parties[edit]

Green Party of England and Wales[edit]

Members of the House of Commons: 4

Members of the House of Lords: 2

The Green Party are a left-wing party who advocate environmentalism, pacifism, eco-socialism and no-growth economics. They also take a very liberal approach to gay rights, electoral reform, drug policy and animal rights and a not so liberal attitude towards freedom of expression, religion and government control. Their roots as a political party go back to various campaign groups from the 1970s, back when it was known as the Ecology Party. From the 1990s onwards they began to achieve some limited electoral success at local government elections in a handful of England's middle class university towns (Oxford, Norwich, Brighton), and MEP seats in European elections.

Tightening themselves up somewhat (including booting out loonies like David Icke, and decided at last to have a party leader, rather than simply a governing committee), they finally secured their first first seat in the House of Commons in the general election of 2010, when party leader Caroline Lucas took Brighton Pavillion. This was followed by the Greens forming a minority administration running Brighton & Hove City Council in 2011. Lucas stood down as leader in 2012, in an attempt to boost the profile of other colleagues. The Greens made a further breakthrough in 2024, taking several seats from Labour and the Conservatives and having multiple MPs for the first time. The party is notably more eurosceptic than almost all left-wing parties, although they wish to stay in a reformed Europe.^[1]

It should be pointed out that Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own separate Green Parties (but not Wales). The SGP has enjoyed a more consistent success than its English sister party, due to the Scottish Parliament not using first past the post.

Reform UK (formerly the Brexit Party)[edit]

Members of the House of Commons: 5

The Brexit Party was established in early 2019, with the bulk of the original members coming from UKIP which it has supplanted. From 2019 - 2021 it's leader was Nigel Farage, the former leader of UKIP. The Party's main policy is to leave the European Union with a 'hard Brexit' on 31 October. The Brexit Party performed well in the May 2019 EU Elections, winning 29 of the UK's 73 seats.

Since Brexit, the party has had to redefine itself and focus on other issues, such as electoral reform and opposition to lockdowns, mask mandates and other COVID-19 restrictions.

Really minor parties[edit]

United Kingdom Independence Party[edit]

Members of the House of Commons: 0

Members of the House of Lords: 0

Welsh Assembly: 0

UKIP are right-wing political party who have benefitted greatly from proportional representation, holding over 16% of the UK's seats in the European Parliament. The triple whammy of being firm advocates of the UK's withdrawal from the European Union, being seen as more right-wing than the Conservative Party and denying climate change has given them real appeal on the right-wing of the UK's political spectrum. In the UK's general election, they seem to just act as a spoiler party for the Conservatives. Some sources even seem to think the Tories would hold an overall majority if it weren't for UKIP. However, their strong numbers in many Labour safe seats lead them to act as something similar towards the Labour party, as many former Labour voters have found themselves disaffected towards the party, mainly due to the social impact of their open door immigration policies. As it stands, UKIP is the only 3rd party to have won elections to the European Parliament, and as a party they came a significant 3rd in the overall popular vote of the UK's General Election come 2015. However, the First Past the Post electoral system, tied together with some controversial campaign spending from the Conservative and Labour parties, led to them simply retaining a single seat gained from a Clacton by-election. Notable figures have included Nigel Farage and Christopher Monckton.

British National Party[edit]

The British National Party is the product of years of in-fighting, mergers and hissy fits from extreme-right 'politicians' and racists from the United Kingdom (including the National Front). It had a brief successful period in the first decade of the 21st century when it gained a few dozens seats in local government (mainly in areas of racial tension) and two seats in the European Parliament. They declined from this, with most councillors losing their seats in 2010 or 2011 and falling from 2 to no MEPs after 2014.^[2] Advocating an end to international aid and immigration, as well as deportation for recent immigrants, the party has had more than its fair share of controversies. Sickeningly, the party tries to claim Winston Churchill as their own. The judiciary recently ruled that their 'whites-only' membership policies are illegal. Notable figures include former leader Nick Griffin, whose leadership led them to short-lived national prominence (before he was expelled from the party in 2014), and party founder the late John Tyndall, an unabashed neo-Nazi who was replaced by Griffin in 1999.^[3] The future of the BNP includes the words "circling" and "drain." As is typical with such organisations, the BNP is in danger of becoming eclipsed by splitters, in this case in British Freedom and the English Defence League. They chiefly found themselves eclipsed by the rise of the more moderate Nationalist party, the UK Independence Party.

Christian Peoples Alliance[edit]

The Christian Peoples Alliance is a Christian democratic political party in the United Kingdom founded in its present form in 1999. It is the largest openly Christian party in Britain. As it says in it's latest manifesto released in 2017^[4] , the party wants to end fractional reserve banking, scrap Trident and promote marriage by giving newly wed couples a £10,000 grant. They are also against homosexual marriage and adoption.^[5]

Christian Party[edit]

Britain's biggest outpost of Christian wingnuttery.

Liberal Party[edit]

The Liberal Party was formed in 1989 by a group of individuals within the original Liberal Party who disagreed with the merger with the Social Democratic Party to form the Liberal Democrats. They claim to be the legal continuation of the old Liberal Party, resulting in them being jokingly referred to as the Continuity Liberal Party. In reality, traditional Liberals from decades ago would struggle to recognise the current party, which includes open Satanists and far-leftists. They have five local government councillors, and occasionally beat the LibDems in Parliamentary elections in Liverpool... In fact, their main political function seems to be to gain a few Lib Dem votes from the easily bewildered and short-sighted.

The SDP also has a continuity group still in existence, which is even smaller.

Socialist Labour Party[edit]

Founded by veteran trade unionist Arthur Scargill, the man largely responsible for the 80s coal miners' strike... this lot rejected New Labour's moderation in favour of old-school policies. The SLP scores 1-2% of the vote in places where it stands (chiefly urban areas).

Official Monster Raving Loony Party[edit]

The Official Monster Raving Loony Party (OMRLP) are the most prominent joke party in UK politics. The current party leader is Alan "Howling Laude" Hope. They are the only party to have put forward a concrete global warming reduction strategy, namely the installation of air conditioning units onto the outside of buildings in order to lower the atmospheric temperature. Their idea of passports for pets managed to become law, somehow... As did their proposed legalisation of commercial radio. (Which will probably puzzle most American readers.)

National Front[edit]

The ancestor of the BNP, the National Front was once the fourth largest political party in the country, with members elected to a few town councils in the late 1970s. It declined considerably with the rise of the BNP (same policies but dressed in suits and ties instead of the hooligan's favourite "bovver" gear).

The NF tends to be more of an activist and pressure group than a party, but still enjoys some notoreity. Remember NorseFire from V for Vendetta? Well, in the book they were directly inspired by the NF.

Veritas[edit]

Robert Kilroy-Silk, former Labour Party shadow minister turned daytime TV host and tanning advocate, stood under the UKIP banner then decided he didn't really like UKIP, he decided to set up a party called "Veritas" (Latin for truth). It did even worse, although due to defectors from UKIP, it did have some seats in Brussels and in the London Assembly. After standing zero candidates in the 2010 general election, they are now mostly forgotten (sadly, thanks to reality TV show I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here, Kilroy-Silk has not been forgotten along with them).

National Health Action Party[edit]

National Health Action Party (formerly Heath Concern) began as a fringe party with the single issue of reopening their local hospital's casualty unit. Amazingly their candidate, a local doctor, was elected to Parliament in 2001, and kept his seat until 2010. Although still centred on their Kidderminster heartland, their gain of a council seat in a neighbouring county, and having a candidate in the Eastleigh by-election a hundred miles away, suggests this tiny party has ambition.

Independent Network[edit]

The Independent Network was created in 2005 to support and advise independent candidates. It is headed by Martin Bell, a former independent MP. It doesn't have policies (although it won't support anyone with discriminatory views), and so probably doesn't really count as a political party.

We Demand a Referendum[edit]

A single-issue party whose goal is to force a referendum on the UK's membership in the EU. Founded by MEP Nikki Sinclaire in 2012, after she was expelled from UKIP for refusing to work with other far-right parties in the EFD group.

Referendum Party[edit]

Another anti-EU party, dating back to the 1990s, when it was formed by eccentric businessman James Goldsmith. Its celebrity supporters included former That's Life! presenter Gavin Campbell. After winning 0 seats in the 1997 General Election, it changed into a pressure group under James's wife Annabel.

Women's Equality Party[edit]

Set up by broadcaster Sandi Toksvig and writer Catherine Mayer in 2015, it (naturally) filters its policies through the lens of feminism, but presents the issues that improve women's lot as something that will improve life in the UK in general. It prominently uses the suffragette tricolour of the WSPU^[6] which has been recently co-opted by TERFs, and it took until December 2022 for it to take a concrete pro-trans rights position, to avoid scaring said TERFs off.^[7]

Scottish parties[edit]

Scottish National Party[edit]

Members of the House of Commons: 9

Scottish Parliament: 63

The Scottish National Party is a centre-left party who advocate Scotland's independence and full membership of the European Union. They have 63 of the 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament, forming a minority government with the informal support of the Scottish Green Party. Their biggest electoral achievements were in 2011 winning 69 seats in the Scottish parliament, the only time any party has won a majority, and winning all but 3 Scottish Westminster seats in 2015 (but losing 21 in 2017) thanks to plummeting support for Labour.^{[8][9][10][11]} They advocate progressive taxation, free higher education, and are massive supporters of the National Health Service. As part of seeking to improve public health in Scotland by limiting alcohol consumption, the SNP has also pushed for minimum pricing for alcohol^[12] and some limitations on availability (e.g. at football^[13] stadiums^[14]). The party is traditionally very anti-war, although it has supported NATO membership since 2012.^[15][16] Notable figures include former First Ministers Alex Salmond, Nicola Sturgeon and Humza Yousaf, and current First Minister John Swinney. The SNP was for a time the second largest political party in the UK by membership, despite only occupying a small part of the UK.^[17]

Scottish Greens[edit]

Scottish Parliament: 7

Although working closely with the other Green Parties in the United Kingdom, the Scottish Green Party is fully independent and also wants an independent Scotland. The party previously held 7 seats in the Scottish Parliament, and came very close to gaining a seat in the European Parliament. Their co-leader is the first openly bisexual party leader in the UK.

Scottish Socialist Party[edit]

Local government: 0^[18]

The SSP had some success in the first and second Scottish Parliaments. Its former leader was Tommy Sheridan elected, and in the next election in 2003 they returned its best electoral result with 6 people elected into the Scottish Parliament.^[19] . Sheridan was later jailed for lying to court about his visits to swingers clubs and participating in other sexually interesting activities. This split the party and (former) members spent more time attacking one another than on anything else.

The SSP is what it says on the tin. In 2016 they were part of the RISE coalition of left-wing parties but failed to win any seats in the Scottish Parliament.^[20]

Scottish Unionist Party[edit]

Not to be confused with the "Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party" (the Tories' official name in Scotland), the SUP is a tiny party based in West Central Scotland (the Glasgow hinterland). It is essentially an unofficial political wing of the Orange Order (Protestant supremacists) in Scotland. They stand few candidates, but have managed to survive for a number of years. Most of their political narrative seems to be based around Northern Ireland, even the matter of Scottish indepebdence.

Alba Party[edit]

Scottish Parliament: 1

An SNP splinter group, with some notable members such as Alex Salmond and Tasmina Ahmed Sheikh, the Alba Party stood in the 2021 Scottish elections and won no seats. Their idea was to "hack" the D'Hondt electoral system used in Scottish elections and create an independence majority.

Their two main policies were Scottish independence and not-being-the-SNP. Particularly on the latter, given the SNP was recently divided on the rights of transgender people at the time of the party's founding, Alba sought out to sweep up pro-independence TERFs who couldn't abide that Nicola Sturgeon wasn't one of them.^[21][22] Beyond that it was hard to ascertain anything.

"Alba" is the Gaelic name for Scotland.

Welsh parties[edit]

Plaid Cymru[edit]

Members of the House of Commons: 4

Members of the House of Lords: 2

Welsh Parliament: 12

Plaid Cymru (The Party of Wales in Welsh) is a left to centre-left party which advocates Welsh independence and big efforts to revive the Welsh language. They're quite a pro-environmental party, working closely with the Scottish National Party in the European Parliament. Welsh people, on the whole, don't want independence - and support for Welsh independence is significantly less in Wales than the support for Scottish independence in Scotland. This goes part of the way to explaining why they play a much smaller role in devolved government than their Scottish counterparts. Despite this, they were junior partner in a coalition with the Labour party, who hold 26 seats in the Welsh Assembly. Notable figures include former leader Leanne Wood, the only party leader with the guts to tell Nigel Farage where to get off. To his face.

Northern Irish parties[edit]

Since the partitioning of Ireland and creation of Northern Ireland in 1922, Northern Irish politics has remained doggedly arranged on sectarian lines, with one set of parties being Unionist (and overwhelmingly Protestant), favouring continuation of the Union of Northern Ireland with Great Britain, and the other being Nationalist (and overwhelmingly Catholic) and campaigning for Northern Ireland to leave the UK and join with the Republic of Ireland in a 'United Ireland'.

The mainstream British political parties have generally declined to field candidates in Northern Ireland. On the basis of their standing on a left wing/right wing axis, the Labour party regard the nominally socialist SDLP as their counterpart, the Conservatives likewise with the Ulster Unionist party, with the Liberals/LibDems paired against the Alliance party. This rather glosses over the Northern Irish parties' sectarian nature, although since the 1998 Good Friday Agreement the parties have been obliged to broaden their scope somewhat from their single-issue sectarian agendas.

Sinn Féin[edit]

Members of Parliament: 7 (abstentionist)

Northern Ireland Assembly: 27

Sinn Féin (Irish for "we ourselves") is the largest Irish nationalist party in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, advocating the secession of Northern Ireland from the Union and its unification with the Irish Republic. Its political positioning and ideology is considered to be left-wing nationalist, advocating varying forms of welfare and the establishment of an Irish equivalent to the British National Health Service. In the North, Sinn Féin was the "political wing" of the Provisional IRA (the "provos"), with several SF members holding convictions for IRA membership and terrorist offences. Despite Irish nationalism typically being closely associated with Roman Catholicism, the party has no specific links to the Catholic church in Ireland, as officially the church takes a rather dim view of murder, racketeering and so forth. Since 2018 the party has supported abortion rights, up to 12 weeks, which although not great is significantly better than the Pope.^[23] Notable figures include current party president Gerry Adams, and Martin McGuinness, a candidate for the 2011 Irish presidential election. Sinn Féin operates a policy of 'abstentionism' regarding the UK parliament in Westminster: it contests parliamentary seats in Northern Ireland, but if a candidate wins, they refuse to take their seat in the House of Commons, as they will not swear the necessary oath of allegience to the British Crown (see Sinn_Féin#Abstentionism). This does not stop them, however, from claiming parliamentary expenses, including having an office provided for their use in Westminster. This of course leaves their constituents without representation in the UK parliament, and costs them the chance to help defeat the government in parliamentary votes.

In 2022, Sinn Féin won the most seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly for the first time, entitling them to the position of First Minister for the first time. This was hailed in the foreign media as a major breakthrough for the party and republicanism. However, they only received this position because the Democratic Unionist Party lost seats, while their vote remained stable. Furthermore, the positions of First Minister and Deputy First Minister (which SF previously held) are considered equal in practice.^[24]

Democratic Unionist Party[edit]

Members of the House of Commons: 5

Members of the House of Lords: 6

Northern Ireland Assembly: 25

The Democratic Unionist Party (or DUP) was founded in the 1970s, by Rev Ian Paisley. It was a split from the mainstream Unionist party, the Ulster Unionist Party. The iconoclastic Paisley had already formed his own church denomination, the Free Presbyterian Church, as a split from the Presbyterians. Like his church, the DUP tended to cater for the more fundamentalist, working class flavour of protestant bigot unionist. However following the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, the DUP grew to become larger than the Ulster Unionist Party it had split from. It is currently the largest party in the Northern Ireland assembly and the fourth largest in the United Kingdom Parliament. Contrary to Sinn Féin on not only constitutional matters, the DUP is viewed as a socially conservative right wing party, with strong links to Protestant churches. It is softly eurosceptic, has had several prolific members come out against homosexuality, and, most uncommonly in the United Kingdom, has also advocated the promotion of creationism in Northern Irish classrooms. Notable figures include founder Ian Paisley, current leader Peter Robinson, and his wife Iris Robinson. Iris was enveloped in a scandal in 2011 when it transpired she had been embroiled in a sexual relationship with a teenage orphan, whom she had known since he was nine, his late father being a family friend who had entrusted the boy to her care. She had also loaned five-figure sums of money to this lover, in business deals of dubious proprietary. Meanwhile she had been outspoken in her condemnation of homosexuality, referring her gay constituents for psychiatric treatment, and declaring in a House of Commons select committee that sodomy was a worse crime than paedophilia. Unsurprisingly, she has seen be forced to resign her Westminster seat and is said to be currently undergoing psychiatric care. DUP former "environment" minister Sammy Wilson is a trenchant climate denialist.

Social Democratic and Labour Party[edit]

Members of Parliament: 2

Northern Ireland Assembly: 7

The SDLP were formerly the largest Irish nationalist party in Northern Ireland and, along with the UUP, were instrumental in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. They were overtaken by Sinn Féin in the 2003 Assembly Election, though they had a brief stint as the once again second largest party following the devastation of the UUP in the 2005 election and continued abstentionism by Sinn Féin. Nevertheless, they have been declining since then and continually place fourth in the Assembly Elections.

Unlike most Northern Irish parties, the SDLP has made an effort to be non-sectarian since the beginning, although its vote is traditionally with the Catholic middle class. Its founders came from both communities.

Alliance Party[edit]

Members of Parliament: 1

Northern Ireland Assembly: 17

Like the SDLP, the Alliance Party has attempted to push non-sectarian politics in NI and paid for it.

Formerly considered a party of moderate unionism, the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland have come to focus on nonsectarianism and pragmatic liberal policies, often focusing on concerns of social equality and the environment. They have become a significant political force in the Belfast area and have been steadily rising. They have had a significant effect on the diminishing support for the UUP in Belfast.

Ulster Unionist Party[edit]

Members of the House of Commons: 1

Members of the House of Lords: 2

Northern Ireland Assembly: 9

Formerly the largest unionist party in Northern Ireland, the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) were overtaken by their erstwhile splitters the DUP in 2003, and devastated in the 2005 election. They have been in steady decline ever since. They are seen as more moderate than the DUP. However, they would not be considered 'real unionists' by quite a large portion of DUP voters. Much of this perception stems from the party's support for the Good Friday Agreement, which the DUP opposed to at the time, seeing it as a concession to Irish republican terrorism.

The pre-split Unionist party was the dominant instrument of government in Northern Ireland following the partition of the island of Ireland in 1922. Although Catholic voters constituted well over 40% of the Northern Ireland electorate, Unionists used gerrymandering tactics to ensure they held the overwhelming number of seats in the Northern Irish parliament in Stormont. This, combined with institutionalised state discrimination against Catholics in housing, jobs and other areas let to increasing civil unrest as the decades went by, culminating in the eruption of 'The Troubles' in 1968. Unionist rule of Northern Ireland was suspended by the UK Government in 1972, who imposed direct rule from Westminster. A notable defector to the Ulster Unionist party was Enoch Powell, who had been expelled from the UK Conservative party in 1968 over his notorious "Rivers of Blood" speech against immigration. Powell held a Westminster seat in South Down for the UUP until his death.

Traditional Unionist Voice[edit]

Members of the House of Commons: 1

Northern Ireland Assembly: 1

Split from the DUP because they thought the DUP were too moderate, making them in relation to the DUP what the DUP were to the UUP. Aside from their deep hatred of Sinn Fein, they're chiefly notable for their support for Torrens Knight, a former loyalist terrorist who was jailed for beating up two women in a bar. Nice people.^[25]

The Workers Party & the Irish Republic Socialist Party (ISRP)[edit]

In a series of splits which will strike a resonance with those familiar with Monty Python's Life of Brian, the "Provisional" IRA split from the Irish Republican Army in 1968, in protest at the latter's lack of interest in murdering people. The dormant rump of the Irish Republican Army then became known as the "Official" IRA. The Workers Party arose as the "political wing" of the Official IRA, a counterpart to Sinn Féin, the political wing of the Provisional IRA.

The Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) were a further set of (particularly bloodthirsty) paramilitary splitters in the 1970s, and they in their turn had their own obligatory "political wing", the IRSP.

Both the IRSP and Worker's Party tended to devote themselves to radical left-wing ideologies, along the lines of neo-Leninism or neo-Trotskyism. Neither of them ever achieved any degree of electoral success besides a handful of councillors in local government.

With the coming of the 21st century, they appear to have largely shrivelled up and died. In any case, the INLA's numbers diminished greatly due to a murderous feud, which only ended when the last remaining member realised that to continue the killing would be suicide. A new breed of post-Good Friday Agreement dissident splitters have taken to the stage instead, including the Real IRA and the Continuity IRA, with their own inevitable political wings such as the '32 County Sovereignty Committee', whose mission is to non-consensually liberate the people of Ireland from their bipartisan decision not to murder each other, by murdering them.

Green Party Northern Ireland[edit]

The GPNI does everything one would expect it to on the environmental front. It is also very vocal about issues regarding sexuality and gender-identity. The colour "green" has connotations of Irish republicanism, but that does not seem to have won or lost them many votes.

English parties[edit]

English Democrats[edit]

The English Democrats is an English federalist party which primarily campaigns for the formation of an English parliament with powers at least equal to those of Scotland's government and considers its self England's answer to Wales' Plaid Cymru and Scotland's Scottish National Party. They also supported independence from the European Union. They advocate a tougher policy on immigration, supporting a points-based system for entry to the country. The English Democrats declare themselves totally opposed to racism, with no connection to the British National Party, simply campaigning for English national identity - although some ex-BNP members have moved to the English Democrats.

English Constitution Party[edit]

A one-man splinter from the English Democrats.

Mebyon Kernow[edit]

Local government: 5^[26]

Mebyon Kernow (Cornish for "Sons of Cornwall") is a small party based in Cornwall, which seeks a return to that county's status as a distinct legal entity; they also seek various protections for, and recognition of, the Cornish language. On this basis they would probably not like to be called an English party. Mebyon Kernow have made a habit of coming last in general elections: even the Cornish Democrats, who are are basically a "one man and a website" set up, with no party machine, no access to funds, and no publicity, still managed to beat MK in the one seat they stood in for the 2010 general elections. [1]

Due to the idiosyncrasies of the British political system, MK are not allowed party political broadcasts since parties have to stand in a greater number of seats than exist in Cornwall. MK has complained about this, and receive very little mass media coverage. They tend to do best in local council elections, and have even included mayors in a few towns such as Liskeard. They are not to be confused with the Cornish National Party.

Daphne du Maurier, author of Rebecca and Jamaica Inn was an active member of Mebyon Kernow and probably their best known member.

Yorkshire Party[edit]

Local government: 3

T'Yorkshire Party used to dream of livin' in a corridor is a regionalist party in t'historic county of Yorkshire. Their main policies are devolution for t'entire Yorkshire region in the form of a Yorkshire parliament similar to that of t'Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parliament. They also want more investment into Yorkshire, making sure when the U.K leaves the E.U Yorkshire trade will be protected and to protect the Yorkshire culture, tha knows.

Former parties[edit]

The UK's political landscape is littered with the wreckage of former parties, some of which left a mark, or even a stain, on history.

The Chartists were a 19th century party who campaigned for the right of the working class to vote. They were most powerful in the industrial cities, and they rioted in Wales, but had faded away long before the universal franchise came into being.

Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists was seen as a serious menace in the 1930s, so much so that the government saw fit to ban it, and imprison Mosley, during World War II. Mosley attempted to return to politics after the war, capitalizing on anti-immigrant feeling, but was a spent force. However he remained a shadowy influence on the far right until his death in 1980.

The Communist Party of Great Britain lasted from 1920 to 1991. It was largely succeeded by the similarly-named Communist Party of Britain.

The Liberal Party was for a long time one of the two big parties in the UK, but was then eclipsed by its offshoot the Labour Party. The Liberals returned a number of prime ministers such as David Lloyd George. They had a brief renaissance in the seventies, forming a coalition with Labour. Leader Jeremy Thorpe was also a great white hope in that period, before his success was destroyed in a bizarre gas sex scandal. In the eighties, the Liberals merged with the SDP to form the Liberal Democrats. The rump Liberal (not Lib Dem) Party owes almost nothing to the old Liberal Party (see above)

In 1981 the Labour Party, defeated at the previous election, decided to wallow in a left-wing version of Tea Party-style ideological orthodoxy. This caused a group of moderates led by the former foreign secretary David Owen to split off and form the Social Democrats. They then formed an electoral pact with the Liberals for the elections of 1983 and 1987. The main effect of this was to undermine an already unpopular Labour, giving the Tories a free hand to sell off Britain's industrial base to the highest bidder. Cheers, guys. In the end the SDP fizzled out after internecine squabbling with the liberals doomed their electoral chances. In 2013 Nigel Farage described Tony Blair as "an SDP Prime Minister."^[27] A rump SDP still exists.

The Respect Party was a socialist party whose driving force was George Galloway. The party de-registered in 2016 after 12 years of an existence that didn't go beyond being Galloway's personal soapbox.^[28]

Change UK was a short-lived failed experiment of a party created in 2019 by disgruntled Conservative and Labour MPs with the hopes of being a big-tent, pro-European party. After ten months of irrelevance and no electoral success, the party was dissolved after the 2019 general election when none of its MPs won their seats. Unlike the SDP which left a lasting impression on British politics, Change UK was a textbook example of how not to set up a party - they had a strong starting base but no one seemed to know what they stood for.

A number of defunct parties arose in Scotland during the first term of the Scottish Parliament in the late nineties, when they saw the success of the Socialists and Greens being elected. The Scottish Senior Citizens Unity Party fluked a seat (much to the surprise of its leader), but was always very vague about what it wanted other than "grey power", which meant it went into rapid decline when it lost its seat - it is a good example of a party getting influence and not knowing what to do with it. The Highlands & Islands Alliance was unsuccessful and also uninspiring - for a supposedly Highland party, it had surprisingly little to say on the Gaelic language question or land reform. Solidarity was Tommy Sheridan's vehicle after he left the SSP - it briefly had MSPs but lost them after elections. The Orkney and Shetland Movement (and its variants) had intermittent activity, and advocated for greater autonomy for the Northern Isles in the seventies. Going back much further, Protestant Action engaged in various anti-Catholic activities and was centered around John Cormack - it arguably stunted the growth of British Fascist parties in Scotland, such as Mosley's.

Last but not least, the Natural Law Party was perhaps the most colourful party of the 1990s and alleviated the boredom of the political scene. Using up George Harrison's vast wealth They were essentially a front for Transcendental Meditation. Their election broadcasts included footage of people engaged in yogic flying, which they said helped reduce crime, and their economic spokesman was a Canadian magician who said he could make financial woes "disappear". They were totally mad, but strangely lovable, and many of the men sported anachronistic moustaches.

See also[edit]

• Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
• Political parties of Canada
• Political parties of Ireland
• Political parties of Germany
• Political parties of Hong Kong
• Political parties of Italy

References[edit]