Are political parties necessary ot british politics?
371129
Yes. It is a shame, though.\n\nIf we did not have political parties then we would not necessarily have a dictatorship. You vote for candidates, not just for parties. The candidate represents you as well as the party.\n\nThe ideal system would be having a ballot paper of entirely independent candidates who follow no party, but you can clearly see what they stand for. This way the local man gets a complete say over his representative. He does not have to support a 'party' whom he might disagree with about 80 per cent of its policy (for example, he might vote for a Labour candidate because of its policy on education (!) even though he is against the policy of introducing I.D. cards).\n\nThe problems start when you enter parliament. Parliamentary parties create order through the chaos of a milliona nd one conflicting ideas. They allow people to broadly allign themselves into groups, which allows legislation to be passed or not. If there was no party structure here, there would be chaos, a political free-for-all where it would be impossible to decide what to vote about, let alone \n\nPolitical parties as a concept are therefore a necessary evil for the British political system. However, the parties themselves need an overhaul as they have become very centre-based, appealing to a narrow band of electors. As such, it could be argued that there is too much of a consensus and there indeed is only 'one party', since there is not much of a choice anymore. The parties need to change to cater for the changing needs of the electorate; the vast majority of whom are disenfranchised by their own apathy. While there is apathy, parties can get away with whatever they please and there is no accountability.\n\nIf used sensibly, internet technology could revolutionise the whole process and create a level of accountability that has never been seen in a democracy. In fact, it could create a true democracy! Strange how the politicians have not put this into practice - I wonder why...
704684
The National Front were a political party and the BNP broke off from them sometime in the 80s. Particularly under more recent legislation I'm sure the NF could be deemed unlawful, and they're unlikely to obtain any kind of power without watering down the very views that make them what they are.
1087868
Yes. Its mostly a parliamentary democracy where the ruling party rules only as long they have majority support of the parliament. And the parliament tends to reflect, doesn't always reflect exactly though, but tends to reflect the views of the people. So the system is a lot more dynamic. In the US once some party has a majority they are in there for a term, regardless of whether or not the people have changed their mind within that term. Also, the US has only 2  choices, but not everything can be divided into two categories. There are endless possibilities of combinations of choices. No political party represents those combinations. May be someone has conservative views on fiscal policy but liberal views on social or foreign policy, who does he vote for? None!\nSo in that sense the EC is more advanced than the US. Which is not surprising, after all, everything that the US boasts of today came from Europe at some point.
867692
Yes, its ok to discriminate politicains on the basis of thier beliefs. But I don't think that the BNP would hardly win any votes, since there are many Asian British and African British people living in the UK. Believe me, I lived in the UK for 2 years.\n\nBritish law ensures freedom of speech, except if it is explicitly discriminatory. So, BNP has every right to exist as a political party and express thier views in public. If people don't like thier views (if percieved racist or some other like), then that's thier problem. \n\nCheers.
535857
Check your local paper or political parties
221864
It is not a matter of 'denial'. Rather it is simply, I assume, because there is not a large enough groundswell of devolutionist opinion in England to generate a mandate. \n\nFrom what I saw of their website, the English Democrats look like a perfectly legitimate political party. Where, one is bound to ask, are their voters and do they exist in sufficient numbers?
1071003
The BNP is a good party to blame when the immigrants dont get their own way in the UK. If they want to be a citizen then surely they want the government that comes with it? If NOT then they're surely just after what they get from the system and in that case they are not benificial for the UK people.\n\nThe best thing the BNP have said is that if they came into power they would give each immigrant enough money for the flight home... I think that's more than fair!
244613
So we have three main parties in the UK. Labour, Conservative, and Liberal. Labour is in government at the moment with the Conservative party forming the opposition (the party with the second most seats). There are other parties such as the Green Party, Scottish National Party, Plaid Cymru (Welsh), Ulster Unionist and many others.\n\nMost people in the UK do not openly discuss who they voted for at the last election (normally every 5 years but a Government can call an election at any time, especially if they are riding high in the opinion polls!)\n\nJust a note to the last answer.. The Queen and the Monarchy have nothing to do with running the country and she is purely a symbolic fugure as head of state. In theory she has the power to over-rule and not approve new laws but in practice this has never been done for hundreds of years and is never likey to happen without plunging the UK into a constitutional crisis that would probably end up with us becoming a republic!\n\nThe Labour party has made big inroads into the popular electorate by becoming less left wing and steering away from its traditional union, working class roots to become more centre left and appeal to more of the middle England voters (you know, married 2.4 children, white collar worker, small provinicial town etc). They have also invested billions of pounds in education, health, and law and order and also claim to have overseen a very stable economy.\n\nThe Conservative party lost power in 1997 after being in since the early eighties. People became jaded with them and they have traditionally been more centre right in their approach and strong on economy, law and order, and big on privatisation.\n\nLiberals havent been in power for decades!\n\nI actually voted Green last time round as i feel strongly about the environment. That said I knew they would never get in and it was more of a protest against the Labour governement for taking us to war. I would vote liberal but would never vote for the Conservative party as they have screwed the country up in the past (rail privatisation, defence cuts, slease/corruption, lack of investment in basics, cut tax to look after the rich).\n\nAt the end of the day no party actually represents all the things i want or belive in so its a bit of a trade off each time as to who i vote for, depending how close i think the election will be, and what they are promising in the next government.\n\nPhew. Essay over!
1004586
No, but, unfortunately, there aren't enough numbers of other parties to effectively change the government.\nOne almost has to side with one or the other, if they want to change anything at all.\nTo affiliate and align themselves with one of the lesser parties, at election times, is basically, no vote at all.  Because the number of supporters isn't there, their candidates stand no chance of winning.\nA lot of people vote for the lesser parties as a matter of principle, but the end result can be a person in office that reflects none of what they stand for.
1129362
Choose the right party
1156269
I would say that the two-party system is certainly on the way to becoming obsolete. You have two extremes on everything. What is needed is a centrist/moderate party that could have a stand that is more moderate.
713013
I don't know, but I don't like it.  That is why I oppose political parties.  If there were no political parties then polititians would be forced to tell people what they think on certain issues instead of just hiding behind the label of a party and having people vote on you based solely on your party.  Not to say that no one looks into a canidate before they vote but the number must be considerably small on both the republican and democratic side.  Because I know that America will never get rid of political parties I think that a third party is a good compromise because with a third party America is not split in half.  With a third party then all parties have more of a chance.  People will still blindly vote for their party, but this way at least every party would be more equal.
253162
An odd mixture of both. Although with the Tories now to the left of Labour and Labour to the right of the Tories UK politics is a bit muddled up at the moment !!
1076390
I used to be a Conservative but now I am not sure.  I voted for them in the General Election but sometimes I think the New Leader is more left than Blair.  I am certainly not a Lib - they are a municipal waste of space on the local council.  I have never ever voted labour.\n\nIf the BNP had a local candidate then I would most likely vote for them.
118607
No.  There is no party that is truly conservative anymore.  We can't even protect our borders. We can't even win in Iraq.  Why?  Politics.  I am from the political standpoint of Winston Churchill.  He crushed his enemies with brute force.  He was considered on the fringe of the right in his time but if he was Prime Minister from the start rather than Neville Chamberlain, Hitler would have been stopped rather than appeased.  I urge anyone who considers themselves to be a republican to read Churchill's biography.  Find out how a true conservative thought.  He did nothing short of save this world.
1068005
Actually, the answer could be yes. Because politics have a way of "dividing" people and groups, the way it divides is the key element.\n\nPolitics may include the struggle between the wealthy and the poor; or it may be divided by geographical location; and it can also include the division of the religious or not.\n\nThe whole purpose of politics is for political power to create, support and enforce new ideas or legislation. But as said before, "how" politics is run is determined by the way people play on the role.
441201
We have a two party political system that has developed in our country.  In what we call our primary election, the two parties put up candidates that want to run for the presidency. Each party holds an election to see who will be the candidate for their party. Each party could have as many candidates as people that want to run. In the last election there were at least 6-8 democrats that ran to see if they could get elected from their party to fun against the republican party.\n\nNormally the party that is in office don't run anyone against the person that is occupying the office of president because they want to show unity. It is not to say that at sometimes others don't run it just that on a norm others don't run against a candidate that is already in the office.\n\nOnce the two parties have selected their candidates the two then run against each other to see who will be the president of the United States.\n\nEvery now and then you might find a third party candidate that have met a majority of the states requirements to run a third party candidate. This does happen a few times as we have several small parties that put up candidates like the Green party and Independent Party are the two most outstanding ones I know.\n\nThis is basically why we normally have two people running for the office of the presidency.\n\nOther countries such as England and France have a different system with lots of parties.\n\nI hope this will be of help to you, good luck