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

What be the problems with the UKs troupe transcription, and how might they be closured? This audition will break up the ch entirelyenges and problems UK troupe system is facing. The essay will look into frequent apathy and mis self-assertion, resulting in low ships company membership and low electoral participation. The main demarcation is that semipolitical parties do not ask strong enough incentives to connect with electors. Proposals to resolve these problems will be changing electoral system, further limiting donations to the political parties and banning their trade activities, forcing much ideological changes and showing strong real actions to ignite the political debates.As we all know, UK political system is dominated by main two political parties, wear upon and Conservatives. Historically, most of the elections, apart from few exceptions, resulted in wizard political party forming the goernment whilst early(a) party creation in opposition. Throughout the history, British political parties enjoyed large memberships and enthusiastic support from all sections of macrocosm during the elections. Voters were more politically aw be and energetic in political life. British Election Studys survey in 1964 showed that three quarters of population had strong or fair affiliation with a political party (Pattie & Johnston, 2007, p. ). In 1950s Labour had 1 million members while conservatives had 2,800,000 (Fieschi, 2006, p. 143) However, political parties lost the trust and support of ordinary. rank of parties is at uncomparable low. According to the recent study, only 2 percent of voters in the UK atomic number 18 party members (Beetham, Blick, Margets, & Weir, 2008, p. 42). People finish from voting in general elections, the trend observed especially amongst young voters. Pressure groups and lobbyists are gaining more influence and political parties are increasingly getting disconnected from the general public.Latest MPs expenses scandal d ramatically reduced the trust in politicians. The trend is not unique to Britain. Other European states observe the same decline in public participation. Therefore, many analysts declared that the age of cumulus party membership is over (Beetham, Blick, Margets, & Weir, 2008, p. 42). But what are the reasons that the political parties lost the trust of public? It is not sure that concourse are not interested in political relation anymore. Mass mobilisation of cross-party protests against the war in Iraq is the biggest example that politics shut away plays important part in publics life.Almost all of the works and researches done on the subject of declining of party politics agree on one thing- the electoral system in the UK and subsequent two party system that results from it is the main obstacle for parties to engage with public. The argument is, political parties only concentrate on swing voters and taking the safe votes for granted (Pattie & Johnston, 2007, p. 7). However, Br itain always had a two party system with FPTP. So, why parties did not concentrate on marginal swing voter areas before?The explanation given by commentators is that Britain used to be divided into two poles conservative traditionalists and prod work class. But now, most of the population is more or slight middle class and establish moved to the centre (Garner & Kelly, 1998, pp. 255-256). Therefore, people have marginalised their party or ideological identities. This argument does not study ground, as although political parties remediateed greatly, the membership of both parties still declined. But this is because voters dont square up the difference between parties and are confused the critics say.But, 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 think that it is inevitable for party membership and influence to diminish on the face of social developments in the UK. Howeve r, there is another explanation. Commentators are right to point out to parties only concentrating on swing voters. However, while before, party largely depended on their grass-root support and mass membership, political leaders tried to be independent from their supporters.Many laws were passed amid the opposition of most of the party members. Even the reforms of the Conservatives under William Hague could not produce effective democratisation of the party. Today, both parties are still centralised. Parties just dont need the support of their members anymore, as parties can only focus on minority of voters and still win the elections. The argument of inevitability of party support declining in the face of emanation middle class is also weak. Labour party did manage to almost double its membership in 1997 with the drive to heal more members (Whiteley, 2009, p. 249).However, once Labour came to power, party became more preoccupied with governing, and snub grassroots party (Whitele y, 2009, p. 249). The conclusion 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 harmoniseing 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(prenominal) financially to survive? Well, this brings us to the second publicise-the party funding.It is only natural that parties did suffer financially with the decline in membership. However, all of the major parties managed to find wealthy donors to compensate for the loss (Jones, Kavanagh, Moran, & Norton, 2007, p. 196). Apart from that, political parties have ready ways of generating money through trade, although at the moment it constitutes only minority of their budget (Granik, 2005). The issue of party funding through wealthy individuals have been and still remains a co ntroversy. The funding scandals in both main political parties triggered the need to review their funding and expenditure.Following Neill Committee answer for, drastic changes were introduced, including declaration of donations over ? 5,000, banning the donations from foreign donors, capping the expenditure 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 and Hansard Society reports respectively, proposed political parties being state funded (Garner & Kelly, 1998, p. 202). No action was taken by ruling Labour on Houghton report and Conservatives rejected Hansard Society report (Jones, Kavanagh, Moran, & Norton, 2007, p. 96). Proponents of the state funding claim that parties, like military or police are vital public bodies, therefore they need to be subsidised by taxpayer. It will also remove the reliance on donors, thus removing th e 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 dependance on donors, it also removes the incentives for parties to recruit more members, thus stopping them further from engaging the people during inter-election times.Provided the public trust in political parties and politicians being record low, it will further raise the suspicions of the public, especially by and by the expenses scandal. The resolving is not state funding, but limiting donations even further. Large donations from interested businesses and individuals should not be just declared, but banned 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 good if they are pop off 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. Coming back to the issue of electoral system, most of the public agree that the FPTP is the most unjust type of representative system available. It is do worse by current decline in party allegiance among the population. FPTP is also unfair to small parties. While major parties get disproportionately large amount of seats to the votes they received, for smaller parties it works the other way around.A 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 go parties to engage with public, as noted 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 likely to produce hanged parliaments and dubio us coalitions. But political parties themselves are coalitions of many views, thats why public is faced with non stopping rifts at heart the parties.Furthermore, coalitions can be persuaded to work with each other successfully, as it is the case in many European countries. Initially, labour government were committed to electoral reforms, with the promise of referendum on the issue in 1997 manifesto. A ten dollar bill later, 2007 government green paper on constitutional reform had only one line, informing that electoral reform is still under revision (Brown & Straw, 2007, p. 46). This uncertainty and not delivering promises further alienates voters. In 2009 Britain, a scarily large proportion of UK voters feel effectively disenfranchised says John Ward of Guardian (Ward, 2009).One of his proposed solution to representation problem is reducing the power of party whips. He says that reduction of power of whips is absolutely subjective if backbench idleness, disillusionment and cyni cism are to be curbed and the executive controlled. Those few still in touch the likes of Kate Hoey, David Davis, Dennis Skinner and graham Brady are popular because they understand widespread concerns (respectively) about rural life, personal liberty, uncompromising values and educational aspiration (Whiteley, 2009). Problem of parties being too strict is actually good for their discipline.However, over the years one sees that the whip system is been abused to great extends, thus taking away the independence of politicians. There is a problem of people lacking political information. People lacking the political information are less likely to participate in politics. In 2006 Joseph Rowntree Trusts antecedent Report was published, where the issue was set amongst many others. In the report, the solution proposed was The citizenship curriculum should be shorter, more practical and result in a qualification. (Power Report, 2006, p. 204).As Power report admits, the curriculum has many flaws. It is unlikely that curriculum makes any significant doctor on young peoples 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 engaging with public. Rather than being a vote-calculating machines, they have to re-establish their clear ideological stands. human race 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 absent 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 come to a negative conclusion. But we believe that old-fashioned traditional politics can work if politicians commit themselves more.If 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 Democratic Audit http//www. democraticaudit. org/ transfer/PP_lowres. pdf Brown, G. , & Straw, J. (2007, July). The Governance of Britain (CM 7170, Green Paper 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). Minor Party and breakaway Politics beyond the Mainstream Fluctuating Fortunes but a Permanent Presence. Parl iamentary Affairs , 621, 4-18. Fieschi, C. (2006). How British Parties Lost Our Favour. Parliamentary Affairs , 601, 143-152. Garner, R. , & Kelly, R. (1998). British political parties today (2 ed. ). Manchester Manchester University Press. Granik, S. (2005). Invisible Business The unregulated World of Political Party Commerce. Politics , 252, 89-98. Jones, B. , Kavanagh, D. , Moran, M. & Norton, P. (2007). Politics UK (6 ed. ). Harlow, New York Pearson Education. Mehdi, H. (2009, September 29). Do politicians outlet? Retrieved November 15, 2009, from Guardian http//www. guardian. co. uk/commentisfree/2009/sep/29/labour-conference-politicians-least-trusted Pattie, C. , & Johnston, R. (2007). Power to the People through Real Power and True Elections? The Power Report and Revitalising British Democracy. Parliamentary Affairs , 602, 1-26. Report, P. (2006). Power to the People. York Power Enquiry. Ward, J. (2009, October 16). MPs have forgotten how to represent us.Retrieved November 1 1, 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 years Ipsos Mori poll suggests that the politicians are the least trusted group of professionals, with only 13% of public trusting them. This is the lowest percentage politicians received in this poll in 26 years (Mehdi, 2009). 2 .For example Labour abandoning clause 4 and modernising the party 3 . Interesting to note 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 opposite ideologies could be overcom e by concentrating in recruiting more grassroots party members. 4 . For example, Poll levy of Conservatives, war in Iraq, 5 . The newly created policy forum to discuss the policies and national 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 . Under this system, most of the votes are wasted. As we have observed before, parties take safe seats for granted and only campaign in swing constituencies. Public, on the other hand, knowing that their vote would not make a difference, abstain from voting. 7 . Evidence suggests that more competitive the elections, more people cast their vote (Pattie & Johnston, 2007, pp. 5-7).