The vote has lead to a series of reactions in the UK, the most obvious one being the triggering of Article 50 in the Lisbon Treaty, starting the 2-year process where the UK and the EU are going to negotiate the terms of the split.
Theresa May, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, was the one to trigger Article 50. May succeeded David Cameron, after his resignation on the day he lost the Brexit vote. This change of power was the first consequence the British Government suffered after the referendum. Although Boris Johnson was viewed as an obvious candidate for Prime Minister, the Conservative vote split when Michael Gove released that he was running. This lead to the resignation of the two Leave-candidates, and Theresa May, who originally played
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Despite of Theresa May's promises, the biggest surprise this spring has been the General Election in the UK. Former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair has argued: "Theresa May has decided on a snap general election because she wants to secure a big parliamentary majority before the full consequences of Brexit become obvious to voters" {Sparrow, Andrew. 18.04.2017). Tony Blair was arguably right, because the Conservatives did get a big parliamentary majority. They received more councillors after the local elections, whereas Labour lost many, and UKIP was nearly wiped out, with only one candidate left. The Liberal Democrats grew after the election, but does still have less than a third of the Labour Party (Ibid, 2017). The overwhelming Conservative majority means the opposition is weakened in regards of their influence on Brexit, as well as other matters. As previously mentioned, Theresa May promised on several occasions an election would not take place, but it seems as though the Conservatives are taking advantage of the political vacuum anyway. This vacuum is caused by the turnout of Brexit, because the Conservative party in many ways is the only party that has a clear strategy on how to handle …show more content…
2017). Although the pound slumped the day after the vote, and has continued to stay lower against the dollar and the euro, there has been no economic crisis (Ibid. 2017). However, what has happened is that the United Kingdom is taking a big leap into the unknown. Many questions remain unanswered, like what will happen to the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, now that the two countries will be on different sides of the EU single market. The previous boarder has been somewhat invisible, but new border controls might have to be put in place, to the dissatisfaction of both countries. Other questions are; what will happen to the immigrants staying or working in the UK; what sort of trade agreement will the UK negotiate, and what will those agreements mean for large and small businesses in the
In conclusion, before David Cameron came into power, the Conservatives were in the right side of politics were Thatcher left them. He brought the party closer to the centre. He changed people’s perception about the Conservative party because he changes a lot of things leaving few things unchanged. David Cameron definitely moved the party to the centre of politics.
who had been seen by many Tories as a future leader of the party lost
The Liberal victory in General Election of 1906 has gone down in History for being one of the biggest landslides in modern UK politics, but it can be argued that it was more of a Conservative loss than a Liberal gain.
In the run up to the election therefore the Liberals won the working class support. It was perhaps the working class who had the biggest effect on the result of the election, this proved to be in favour of the Liberal Party.
However, this majority does not seem so great when looked at in percentage of votes. The Liberals won just over 50% of the vote, while the Conservatives were only slightly behind with 43%. This apparent anomaly is explained by the British Electoral system; the 'first past the post' policy where the M.P with the highest number of votes wins, regardless of whether other Parties have nearly the same number of votes. This sensational change in the British public's votes must have been a sign of the obvious change in mood over the Conservative's term.
Evaluate the extent to which there is a democratic deficit in the UK (30) The UK political system is one that has lasted for many hundreds of years. Though it has remained reasonably stable throughout this time, there have been many problems with UK politics. A democratic deficit is defined as any situation in which there is believed to be a lack of democratic accountability and control over the decision-making process. Many would argue that the UK suffers from a democratic deficit.
There are a number of various ways that can be used in order to address the ever-growing problem of democratic deficit in the UK, which is based around factors such as the low participation rates and general apathy towards politics in the wider public.
So, what happens after a party wins? It has been observed, “Legislative seats almost always work to benefit the party winning the most votes” (Tufte, 1973). If the share of the votes increases, the share of the seats increases, and in most elections the winning party still will probably have less than 65% of the vote. The theory of the Cube Law says that the vote odds equal the seat odds, and that the outcomes of the votes to seats ratio will be predictable no matter what (Tufte, 1973). Although this Law has not necessarily predicted a correct outcome in every election since its birth, it should be noted that its accuracy around the whole world is higher than in just specific
...e a lot of parties are going to be running for office. However, for the fringe parties this creates a major advantage for them. With the load of political parties in the House of Commons, there would be a wider range of interests for people but there would be a lot of indecision and coalitions.
Since party politics began in Canada, the style in which leaders are elected is comparable to a horse race. Using the single member plurality (SMP), more commonly referred to as “first past the post,” method of seat allocation in both the House of Commons and each province's Legislative Assembly, whoever gets the most votes is asked to form the government; this only takes into accounts the number of seats a party wins, not the overall popular vote. In a political system not limited to two parties, like the United States, many times over 50% of Canadians do not want the party that won, to win. In this current electoral system, votes are wasted, smaller parties are terribly misrepresented and, in some cases, a party with a lower percent of the vote has come into power. Already, three provinces have attempted to vote on electoral reform; however, the vote did not pass in any of them. British Columbia (BC) and Prince Edward Island (PEI) both held their first referendum on the subject in 2005, BC's second referendum was held in 2009. Also, Ontario held their referendum in 2007. Because none of the referendums passed, it is clear that Canadians are not quite ready for electoral reform. Regardless, it is evident that a spark has ignited in the brains of citizens nation-wide; with recurring evidence that suggests the current electoral system horribly represents the majority of Canadian citizens, the public is beginning to realize that there is something terribly wrong.
middle of paper ... ... d therefore the smaller parties can be considered to have very little effect on the overall political situation. In conclusion, the UK can still best be described as a two party system, provided two considerations are taken into account. The first is that Conservative dominance victories between 1979-97 was not a suggestion of party dominance and that eventually, the swing of the political pendulum will be even for both sides. This can perhaps be seen today with Labour's two landslide victories in 1997 and 2001.
Paun Akash, Robert Hazell, Andrew Turnball, Alan Beith, Paul Evans, and Michael Crick. "Hung Parliaments and the Challenges for Westminster and Whitehall: How to Make Minority and Multiparty Governance Work (with Commentaries by Turnbull, Beith, Evans and Crick)." in Political Quarterly Vol 81, Issue 2: 213-227.
However, though very hard to spot, one of the biggest strengths in Thatcher’s speech is her use of emotion in her rhetorical appeals. Throughout the speech, she appeals to the humor in the situation to lighten up the mood and continues to show how much she cares for and understands her people and wants them to know that she is going to be there to help them regain their economic stability. “And we actually like each other” (Margaret Thatcher, “The Lady’s not for Turning”). Thatcher refers to her and the other conservatives liking one another as they have been discussing and arguing over the challenges in their economy, and normally, people who argue generally don’t like one another. She continues to humor the crowd whilst talking about the death of capitalism saying “Well, if this is the death of capitalism, I must say that it is
Over the years, a source of concern has been that minority governments don’t seem to last, that they can’t seem to remain in power as long as majority governments can (Bourgault, 2011: 512). Indeed, it is true that the shortest government to stay in power was the one of Meighen in 1926 whose parliament sieged for a grand total of three days before losing the confidence of the House of Commons (Migneault, 2010: 101). Be that as it may, this remains anecdotic and shouldn’t as a recurrent event (Migneault, 2010: 101). Nevertheless, it has been noted that, although majority government have commonly stayed in power for 48 months, minority government have managed to retain their place for 22 months on average (Migneault,
In 1997, Tony Blair of the labour party won the United Kingdom’s general election on the ideology, goals and a party manifesto of a ‘new labour’, a revision, an update and a reform of the old labour party, bringing new radical politics to the 20th century - although some believe that labour only won the election due to the British publics increasing hate for Thatcher and the conservatives. The term new labour was a reflection on how the labour party was trying to reform itself and depart from the ideas of ‘old labour’ that had failed to win an election since 1974 and take on new ideas and politics that seemed radical, new and progressive and that would regain trust from the British voters. ‘New labour, new for Britain’ was the slogan that first appeared on the party’s manifesto in 1996 and soon became the party’s main slogan for the campaign of the 1997 elections. But how exactly was new labour new? New labour was trying to become more progressive with its politics that reformed all of the key policy domains that the government were interested in. By attempting to reform the party’s manifesto as well as clause IV, new labour attempted to become a new party that could progress British politics rather than rely on traditional politics of old labour. New labour wanted to modernise the party’s by perusing their traditional goals which include job support, economic growth, investments in public services, welfare and redistribution but they also wanted new progressive politics that catered to the minority groups in terms of social justice, for example civil partnerships (King,2002). However, some argue that new labour was not particularly ‘new’ and instead that Blair’s government had betrayed the traditions of the labour party and inst...