The Main Disagreements Between the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat Parties
The three main parties in UK politics, Labour, Conservatives and
Liberal Democrats, are all based on greatly differing ideologies which
can often lead to them having varying viewpoints on key issues. These
differences can often lead to conflicts or disagreements between the
parties over which policy will be most beneficial to the country.
A particularly controversial and fiercely contested issue is the role
of the United Kingdom in the future of the European Union. The Labour
party are often considered to be pro-Europe although their policies do
tend to keep Britain's interests at heart. Their priorities for Europe
include the expansion of the EU by increasing the number of member
states, the forging of better relations with non-members such as
Russia, the Ukraine and other former Soviet Union states and whilst,
remaining pro-single currency, Labour insist that five economic
conditions must be met before the UK enters into membership of the
Euro.
In contrast, the Conservative party are traditionally anti-Europe and
their policies reflect this. They are strongly opposed to further
European integration as proposed by Labour and are fearful of Europe
becoming a single super state. In 1998, Conservative party members
voted on whether to adopt a policy which was in favour of joining the
single currency. The fact that 60% were opposed to it shows how
strongly the party feel that the idea of EU integration is an outdated
idea. The Liberal Democrats are the most pro-Europe of all of the
major parties, however, they do have priorities which focus on they
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Liberal Democrats tend to live up their name with policies based on a
more free and open society that everyone can enjoy. Labour have
steadily moved closer to the centre of the political spectrum and
their policies reflect this with their attempts to retain national
sovereignty whilst attempting to make society a much more comfortable
place. The Conservatives are currently undergoing a period of change
which has seen them adopt policies and ideologies which move the party
away from Thatcherite capitalism although their some of their policies
have not always adequately shown this. It can be argued that such
disagreement maker politics too adversarial and not very proactive.
However, without these disagreements, governments would remain
unchecked and therefore conflicts between parties do increase voter
choice.
The conservative party has been in existence since the 1670s and was first called the ‘Tories’, a term used by the Scottish and Irish to describe a robber. This party is a right- wing party which believed in conserving the tradition and the king, as the name entails. David Cameron, the current party leader became the leader in 2005. He is also the present prime minister of Great Britain and he has made a lot of changes since he became the leader of the party. In this essay, I will talk about the history of the party, looking into detail at their gradual changes or transition in ideology and the various changes that David Cameron has made to the party’s image and beliefs.
introduced Department of Housing, Home Savings Grants Scheme and Housing Loans Insurance Corporation to help more Australians own their own home
Party is an inevitable feature of the democracy and it is defined as ‘an autonomous group of citizens having the purpose of making nominations and contesting elections in the hope of gaining control over governmental power through the capture of public offices and the organization of the government’ (Caramani, 2011, p.220). Parties are ubiquitous in modern political systems and they perform a number of functions, they are: coordination, contesting elections, recruitment, and representation (Caramani, 2011). Political parties are the product of the parliamentary and electoral game, and party systems reflect the social oppositions that characterize society when parties first appear (Coxall et al., 2011).
that the state should play a smaller role in the day to day lives of
Whether it is today or in the 1790’s, political parties will always have differing views. Works Cited Burke, Edmund. “From Reflections on the Revolution in France.” Class handout. "Conservative, n. and adj.".
In the United States we are divided by the left and right side on the political spectrum; even further divided into political parties such as Republicans, on the right, and Democrats, on the left side. These two political parties show philosophical differences through their viewpoints on major topics such as the economy, separation of church and state, abortion, and gun control.
province of Quebec in the last federal election in 1993, won 54 seats in that
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.
Political parties, like interest groups, are organized groups that effort to influence the government by electing their associates to important government offices. The first party system appeared in the 1970s and pitted the federalist beside the Jeffersonian Republican. Over the years, the federalists progressively weakened and disappeared altogether after the pro-British sympathies of some Federalist leaders for the duration of the War of 1812 led to charges of betrayal against the party. From the collapse of the federalist until 1830s, American had only one political party, the Jeffersonian Republicans, who gradually came to be known as the Democrats. There was strong factional conflict within the Democratic Party, principally between the
During the second half of the past century the notion that, political science should be treated as a science became extremely popular among academics specially in the United States. One of the most prominent exposers of this school of thought was Anthony Downs, who developed a theorem to explain in a rather economic sense, how and why voters behave in a certain way when it comes to voting. Downs did not only applied his theory to the way voters behave, he also used it to explain the way political parties align themselves when it comes to elections in a two and a multiparty system nevertheless this essay will analyze Downs’ claims about a two party system only. This essay argues that the Downs’ model has proven to be accurate in many cases throughout history, nevertheless it makes a series of assumptions about voters and parties that can not be considered realistic neither in 1957, when he published his paper An Economic Theory of Political Action in Democracy in 1957 nor in 2013. This essay also acknowledges that fact that this theory might help to explain how parties behave but it is by no means the only explanation. Furthermore this essay will prove that it is a multiplicity of factors rather than an economic theory what can help us understand why parties behave the way they do. In order to support the argument previously stated this essay will state and critically analyze a number of Downs assumptions, then his theory will be outlined. Then it will carefully consider how effective it has been at predicting the way in which parties align themselves by examining the behavior of political parties during general elections in different countries.
Finally, in the fifth claim about policy drift Moravcsik highlights that the decision in the EU is to centrist and both left wing parties and right wing parties are skeptics about EU policies. This happens because of “there are high threshold for the adoption of EU policies: unanimity in the Council, or a majority in the Commission plus a qualified majority in the Council plus an absolute majority in the European Parliament and then judicial review by national courts and the European Court of Justice” (Hix & Follesdal 2006:540).
Cameron succeeded in getting a new deal on the UK membership of the European Union, but the decision whether to leave was up to the citizens and thereby leaving the government without much control. The exit of the UK seems to challenge the idea of “integration” and brings the concept of disintegration into the picture, which Liberal Intergovernmentalism then would have to be able to account for. Due to the scope of this paper I will only briefly touch upon disintegration and how Liberal Intergovernmentalism deals with UK’s divorce with the European Union. According to Ben Rosamond (2016), UK leaving the European Union has provoked speculations about a possible disintegration of Europe (Rosamond, 2016: 865).
...y more appealing by removing themselves from the criticisms that both the conservatives and liberals had and making labour appear as a new, different way in which politics should by heading. This may also be true by appearing to be the most progressive party. By promoting themselves a party of progress and change, labour would have appealed to the electorate who were uninterested in the same promises by traditional parties and convince more non voters to vote for a party that promotes radical and progressive changes. It is argued by the majority of critics that ‘new’ labour wasn’t as especially new as they made themselves seem, instead they took from a variety of past and present governments different ideals, goals and politics and combining them all to make a ‘new’ progressive party that would appeal to the masses that wanted a new radical change in politics.
Lelieveldt, H. and Princen, S. 2011The politics of the European Union. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
The US has a two party system in which two parties dominate in the US