'What Are the Problems with the Uk’s Party System, and How Might They Be Resolved?\r'

'What be the problems with the UK’s call(a)er formation, and how skill they be decided? This essay entrust analyse the scraps and problems UK comp whatsoever system is facing. The essay leave al integrity look into popular apathy and mistrust, expirying in low party social status and low electoral participation. The master(prenominal) course is that g everywherenmental parties do non have tough tolerable incentives to connect with voters. Proposals to resolve these problems will be changing electoral system, further limiting forefatherations to the semi governmental parties and forbiddance their trade activities, forcing more than than ideological changes and sho makeg absolute real proceedings to ignite the political debates.\r\nAs we all know, UK political system is dominated by main twain political parties, Labour and Conservatives. Historically, or so of the elections, aside from few exceptions, resulted in one party forming the political scie nce whilst another(prenominal) party creation in opposition. finished extinct the history, British political parties enjoyed large memberships and enthusiastic championship from all sections of population during the elections. Voters were more politically advised and active in political life. British preference Study’s survey in 1964 showed that 3 quarters of population had strong or jolly affiliation with a political party (Pattie & Johnston, 2007, p. ). In 1950’s Labour had 1 billion members firearm conservatives had 2,800,000 (Fieschi, 2006, p. 143) However, political parties lost the trust and support of prevalent. rank and file of parties is at all-time low. According to the recent study, totally 2 percent of voters in the UK ar party members (Beetham, Blick, Mar carrys, & Weir, 2008, p. 42). People abstain from balloting in planetary elections, the trend detect especially amongst young voters. closet groups and lobbyists argon gaining more lift out and political parties ar increasingly getting disconnected from the frequent domain.\r\n actual MP’s expenses scandal dramatically trim down the trust in politicians. The trend is not ludicrous to Britain. Other European bring ups observe the same crash in public participation. Therefore, many analysts decl atomic number 18d that the historic percentage point of mass party membership is over (Beetham, Blick, Margets, & Weir, 2008, p. 42). besides what atomic number 18 the reasons that the political parties lost the trust of public? It is not true that quite a little are not interest in politics anymore. Mass militarization of cross-party protests against the struggle in Iraq is the biggest example that politics soundless plays important part in public’s life.\r\nAlmost all of the black markets and researches done on the subject of declining of party politics agree on one thing- the electoral system in the UK and attendant  "two party” system that results from it is the main obstructer for parties to engage with public. The argument is, political parties unless tolerate on swing voters and taking the â€Å"safe votes” for disposed(p) (Pattie & Johnston, 2007, p. 7). However, Britain unceasingly had a two party system with FPTP. So, wherefore parties did not concentrate on peripheral swing voter areas sooner?\r\nThe explanation attached by commentators is that Britain used to be divided into two poles: conservative traditionalists and labour working degree. But now, most of the population is more or less â€Å" optic class” and have moved to the centre (Garner & Kelly, 1998, pp. 255-256). Therefore, pot have marginalised their party or ideological identities. This argument does not hold ground, as although political parties reform greatly, the membership of both(prenominal) parties still declined. â€Å"But this is because voters don’t see the difference mingled with parties and are confused” the critics say.\r\nBut, is it not exactly what the two political parties used to be; having two distinct ideologies? Yet, membership is declining in both cases. So, one might hold that it is inevitable for party membership and influence to decrease on the face of social developments in the UK. However, at that place is another explanation. Commentators are right to point out to parties notwithstanding concentrating on swing voters. However, while before, party largely depended on their grass-root support and mass membership, political premiseers tried to be â€Å"independent” from their supporters.\r\n some laws were passed amid the opposition of most of the party members. Even the reforms of the Conservatives at a lower place William Hague could not produce effective â€Å"democratisation” of the party. To daytime, both parties are still centralised. Parties just don’t pauperism the support of their members a nymore, as parties can lone(prenominal) focus on minority of voters and still win the elections. The argument of inevitability of party support declining in the face of rising middle class is alike weak. Labour party did manage to almost multiply its membership in 1997 with the drive to regain more members (Whiteley, 2009, p. 249).\r\nHowever, once Labour came to effect, party became more negligent with â€Å"governing”, and disregarded grassroots party (Whiteley, 2009, p. 249). The expiration from above analysis is that, given the right incentives, parties are able to recruit members. But political parties are more concerned with winning elections and holding office, and not concentrating on representing the people (Copus, Clark, Reynaert, & Steyvers, 2008, p. 6). But how could political parties do it? Do they not depend on members and supporters at least financially to survive? Well, this brings us to the number issue-the party livelihood.\r\nIt is only natura l that parties did suffer financially with the decline in membership. However, all of the major parties managed to visualise pie-eyed donors to compensate for the loss (Jones, Kavanagh, Moran, & Norton, 2007, p. 196). Apart from that, political parties have found ways of generating money through trade, although at the moment it constitutes only minority of their cypher (Granik, 2005). The issue of party funding through wealthy individuals have been and still remains a controversy. The funding scandals in both main political parties triggered the need to review their funding and expenditure.\r\nFollowing Neill Committee fib, forceful changes were introduced, including declaration of donations over ? 5,000, banning the donations from foreign donors, capping the spending in general elections at ? 20 million and controls over spending on referendum campaigns (Jones, Kavanagh, Moran, & Norton, 2007, p. 196). Even before Neill Committee report, in 1976 and 1981 Houghton an d Hansard Society reports respectively, proposed political parties universe state funded (Garner & Kelly, 1998, p. 202). No action was taken by ruling Labour on Houghton report and Conservatives jilted Hansard Society report (Jones, Kavanagh, Moran, & Norton, 2007, p. 96). Proponents of the state funding require that parties, like military or police are vital public bodies, therefore they need to be subsidised by taxpayer. It will alike extract the reliance on donors, thus removing the undesired influence (Jones, Kavanagh, Moran, & Norton, 2007, p. 197). However, those arguments are weak. Although, it is true that the state funding might reduce the dependence on donors, it also removes the incentives for parties to recruit more members, thus stopping them further from lovable the people during inter-election times.\r\nProvided the public trust in political parties and politicians being record low, it will further effect the suspicions of the public, especially after the expenses scandal. The ascendent is not state funding, but limiting donations even further. Large donations from interested businesses and individuals should not be just declared, but censor altogether. Parties should be forced to, once again, rely on their members for funding. The claim that political parties are public bodies is untrue. They are voluntary bodies. Political parties are only secure if they are fit for purpose, i. e. eing a link between a government and public. When they are successful in this task, they gain trust of public and their membership will soar. This automatically will solve their funding problems. glide slope back to the issue of electoral system, most of the public agree that the FPTP is the most unjust type of illustration system available. It is made worse by current decline in party allegiance among the population. FPTP is also unfair to littler parties. While major parties get disproportionately large amount of seats to the votes they r eceived, for smaller parties it works the other way around.\r\nA more proportionally representative voting system will result in more parties competing in general elections, with new parties created to contest the elections. This competition will not only motivate parties to engage with public, as notable earlier, but also make people more politically active during the elections. Supporters of FPTP system say that it provides strong and effective government, while PR system potential to produce hanged parliaments and unstable coalitions. But political parties themselves are coalitions of many views, that’s why public is set about with non stopping rifts within the parties.\r\nFurthermore, coalitions can be persuaded to work with each other successfully, as it is the case in many European countries. Initially, labour government were perpetrate to electoral reforms, with the promise of referendum on the issue in 1997 manifesto. A decade later, 2007 government green physical composition on constitutional reform had only one line, informing that electoral reform is still chthonian revision (Brown & Straw, 2007, p. 46). This uncertainty and not delivering promises further alienates voters. â€Å"In 2009 Britain, a frighteningly large proportion of UK voters odour effectively disenfranchised” says John Ward of protector (Ward, 2009).\r\nOne of his proposed solution to representation problem is trim back the power of party whips. He says that reduction of power of whips â€Å"… is absolutely essential if backbench idleness, disillusionment and cynicism are to be curbed †and the executive controlled. Those few still in equalize †the likes of Kate Hoey, David Davis, Dennis Skinner and Graham Brady †are popular because they determine widespread concerns (respectively) about rural life, personal liberty, unrelenting values and educational aspiration” (Whiteley, 2009). Problem of parties being too strict is actuall y good for their discipline.\r\nHowever, over the years one sees that the whip system is been mistreated to great extends, thus taking away the freedom of politicians. There is a problem of people absent political culture. People lacking the political information are less likely to participate in politics. In 2006 Joseph Rowntree Trust’s â€Å" office staff spread over” was published, where the issue was identified amongst many others. In the report, the solution proposed was â€Å"The citizenship curriculum should be shorter, more practical and result in a qualification. ” ( bureau Report, 2006, p. 204).\r\nAs Power report admits, the curriculum has many flaws. It is unlikely that curriculum makes any significant impact on young people’s political participation. Therefore, political parties themselves should engage in educational activities. They should hold more meetings and rallies, explaining people why to vote and why to vote for them. Political parties should re-think their methods of appealing to public. Emphasis should be given to enlarging their membership and sweet with public. Rather than being a vote-calculating machines, they have to re-establish their exposed ideological stands.\r\nPublic disillusion with what they are voting fore can only be resolved with party philosophies and ideologies being distinct. They also have to find the ways of re-gaining public trust. For that, they need more action rather than words. Radicalism is missing in modern day politics. Mass rallies, public speeches are being replaced by appearances on mass media and point scoring PR campaigns. Of course, all the symptoms mentioned above are interconnected, so it would be wrong to analyse each separately and get it on to a negative conclusion. But we believe that ex traditional politics can work if politicians bill themselves more.\r\nIf parties reform, they make their positions stronger, with respect and trust vested in them by public. Failure to reform will eventually lead to their doom. Bibliography Beetham, D. , Blick, A. , Margets, H. , & Weir, S. (2008, February). Power and Participation in Modern Britain. Retrieved November 11, 2009, from parliamentary Audit: http://www. democraticaudit. org/download/PP_lowres. pdf Brown, G. , & Straw, J. (2007, July). The Governance of Britain (CM 7170, Green physical composition on constitutional reforms. Retrieved November 11, 2009, from Official-Documents: http://www. official-documents. gov. k/document/cm71/7170/7170. pdf Copus, C. , Clark, A. , Reynaert, H. , & Steyvers, K. (2008). pincer political party and Independent Politics beyond the Mainstream: displace Fortunes but a Permanent Presence. Parliamentary personal matters , 62:1, 4-18. Fieschi, C. (2006). How British Parties Lost Our Favour. Parliamentary personal matters , 60:1, 143-152. Garner, R. , & Kelly, R. (1998). British political parties today (2 ed. ). Manchester: Manchester Uni versity Press. Granik, S. (2005). inconspicuous Business: The Unregulated World of Political Party Commerce. Politics , 25:2, 89-98. Jones, B. , Kavanagh, D. , Moran, M. & Norton, P. (2007). Politics UK (6 ed. ). Harlow, New York: Pearson Education. Mehdi, H. (2009, family line 29). Do politicians matter? Retrieved November 15, 2009, from protector: http://www. guardian. co. uk/commentisfree/2009/sep/29/labour-conference-politicians-least-trusted Pattie, C. , & Johnston, R. (2007). Power to the People through â€Å"Real Power and True Elections”? The Power Report and Revitalising British Democracy. Parliamentary personal matters , 60:2, 1-26. Report, P. (2006). Power to the People. York: Power Enquiry. Ward, J. (2009, October 16). MPs have forgotten how to represent us.\r\nRetrieved November 11, 2009, from Guardian: http://www. guardian. co. uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/16/mps-representation-constitutional-reform Whiteley, P. (2009). Where Have All the Members Gone ? The dynamics of Party Membership in Britain. Parliamentary Affairs , 62 :2, 242-257. ——————————————†[ 1 ]. This year’s Ipsos Mori treetop suggests that the politicians are the least trusted group of professionals, with only 13% of public trusting them. This is the lowest role politicians received in this poll in 26 years (Mehdi, 2009). [ 2 ].\r\nFor example Labour abandoning article 4 and â€Å"modernising” the party [ 3 ]. Interesting to strain that, although Conservative party was always associated with rich class and electorate dominated by working class, the party was always able to win the elections, gaining at least a third of working class. Especially during inter war periods; Conservatives were the most favourite party in inter-war period [ (Garner & Kelly, 1998, p. 56) ]. This reinforces our thesis that different ideologies could be overcome by concentrating in r ecruiting more grassroots party members. [ 4 ]. For example, Poll Tax of Conservatives, war in Iraq, 5 ]. The newly created â€Å"policy forum” to discuss the policies and internal party conventions are only advisory and it became harder to challenge the leadership of the Conservative party (Jones, Kavanagh, Moran, & Norton, 2007, p. 287). [ 6 ]. low this system, most of the votes are wasted. As we have observed before, parties take â€Å"safe seats” for granted and only campaign in â€Å"swing” constituencies. Public, on the other hand, knowing that their vote would not make a difference, abstain from voting. [ 7 ]. Evidence suggests that more private-enterprise(a) the elections, more people cast their vote (Pattie & Johnston, 2007, pp. 5-7).\r\n'