Whatever Is Happening to the British Party System?

Whatever Is Happening to the British Party System?Author(s): Anthony KingSource: PS, Vol. 15, No. 1 (Winter, 1982), pp. 10-17Published by: American Political Science AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/418841 .

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Whatever Is Happening to the British Party System? Anthony King* University of Essex

British politics are more fun today, at least for the political scientist, than at any time since the Second World War. The British two-party system, that seem- ingly immutable product of the "first past the post" electoral system, Britain's social structure and the enduring party identifications of Britain's voters, shows every sign of breaking up-not slowly and gradually, but with something ap- proaching Mount St. Helen's force. A political party that did not exist a year ago, the Social Democrats, is now, in alliance with the liberals, sweeping all before it electorally. This short article tries to give some account of what is go- ing on-and why. The present upheaval is taking place both down below, among voters, and up above, among members of Parliament and other prominent politicians. Let us begin with the voters.

The Voters Switch Off Anthony King

Anyone asked to describe the partisan composition of the British electorate in, say, the 1950s would have had no trouble doing so. There were in existence two large, solid voting blocs, one Conservative, the other Labour. They were large in the sense that each accounted for somewhere between 40 and 45 percent of the total electorate (precise assessments differed). They were solid in the sense that most voters were identified with one or other major party, and few voters switched their allegiance between one election and the next. Election outcomes were determined by the minority of "floating voters" (an odd term, if you stop and think about it) in between. The evidence now suggests-and has been suggesting for some time-that those two voting blocs are neither as large nor as solid as they once were. The bases of much of Labour and the Conservatives' traditional electoral support have been crumbling. Some of the evidence comes from survey research. The British electorate is more volatile than it was. The British Election Study, based at Essex University, the suc- cessor to the Butler-Stokes research operation of the 1960s and 1970, found from a

*Anthony King is professor of government at the University of Essex and comments on elections for the British Broadcasting Corporation and the London Observer.

10 PS Winter 1982



panel study that, between the two general elections of February and October 1974, only eight months apart no fewer than 31 percent of the total electorate varied their behavior, in the sense of switching between one party and another or between voting and non-voting. Even more striking are the findings relating to party identification. At the time of the 1964 general election, 40 percent of the British electorate had a "very strong" or "fairly strong" identification with one or other of the two major parties. By the time of the last general election, in May 1979, that figure had fallen to 20 percent. But the hardest evidence-the evidence that even politicians skeptical about opinion polls have to believe-comes from the behavior of the voters in the polling booths. Table 1 sets out in summary form the results of Britain's general elections since 1950. To save the reader the bother of doing mental arithmetic, the second row from the bottom simply sums, column by column, the first two rows; and the bottom row is simply the result of subtracting the second-bottom row from 100 percent. Three points about the table are worth noting. The first is the drop in levels of Conser- vative support since the 1950s. Even in winning their stunning electoral triumph of three years ago, the Tories under Margaret Thatcher secured a considerably smaller proportion of the total vote than in the party's heyday in the 1950s; and the results of the two 1974 elections were near-disastrous.

The second point to note is that, if the Conservatives have done badly, Labour has failed to achieve 40 percent of the vote at any of the last three elections. The party's showing in 1979 was its worst since the Ramsay MacDonald debacle of 1931. In the early 1980s, Labour is back where it was in the 1920s. The third point follows from the other two. As the bottom two rows of the table make clear, there has occurred a sharp decline in the proportion of voters supporting either major party, a sharp increase in the proportion prepared to support one or other of the minor parties (chiefly the Liberals, whose vote rose gradually from 21/2 percent in 1951 to 19.3 percent in February 1974). By the mid-and late 1970s, between one- fifth and one-quarter of Britain's voters were quite consciously opting out of the choice of Britain's government. They bothered to go to the polls; having got there, they deliberately turned their backs on both of the only two parties, the Conservatives and Labour, capable, realistically, of forming the next administration.

What is the explanation? Why have so many voters been switching off in this way? Part of the answer relates to the Conservative party alone, part to the Labour party, part to both parties taken together.

With regard to the Conservatives, good data over time are lacking, but two things seem to be happening. First, the Conservatives have largely lost their reputation as "the natural party of government"-unexciting perhaps, but, unlike Labour, compe-

TABLE 1 Voting in British General Elections 1950-1979 (Percent)

Feb. Oct. 1950 1951 1955 1959 1964 1966 1970 1974 1974 1979

Conservative 43.5 48.0 49.7 49.4 43.4 41.9 46.4 37.9 35.8 43.9 Labour 46.1 48.8 46.4 43.8 44.1 47.9 43.0 37.1 39.2 36.9 Both Major Parties 89.6 96.8 96.1 93.2 87.5 89.8 89.4 75.0 75.0 80.8 All Other Parties 10.4 3.2 3.9 6.8 12.5 10.2 10.6 25.0 25.0 19.2

Source: David Butler and Anne Sloman, British Political Facts 1900-1979, 5th edition (London: Macmillan, 1980), pp. 208-10.

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Whatever Is Happening to the British Party System?

tent, reliable and solid. The Tories were once widely thought to have been "born to rule." Not any longer. The economic and other disasters of the Heath years, and now of the Thatcher years, have seen to that. Secondly, although again hard evidence is lacking, it would seem that the Conservatives were once regarded, too, as somehow a "national" party in a way that Labour was not-a caring party, a party concerned with the well-being of the whole country and not just with one section of it. If so, that element in the Tory image has also largely disappeared. The Heath and Thatcher governments have been widely perceived as harsh and unyielding (despite Heath's famous policy "U-turns"). The story with regard to Labour is more straightforward and is based on better evidence: The British electorate, including supporters of the Labour party, has over- whelmingly turned against three of the most important elements in Labour's traditional policy: nationalization of industry, ever-increasing spending on social services, and the close constitutional ties that bind the Labour party to the trade unions. Just how great has been the collapse of support for these major planks in Labour's traditional platform is indicated by Table 2. The findings in the table would be bad enough from Labour's point of view if they were based on the whole electorate; what makes them sensational is that they are based on the responses of Labour identifiers alone. As can be seen from the table, only about one-third of Labour identifiers are now in agree- ment with the main ideas that their own party stands for. A party in this position is in real trouble.

The Conservatives and Labour have thus lost support to some extent independently of one another; but they have also lost support for reasons pertaining to them both. Television-the main medium of political communication in Britain as in the U.S.-has undoubtedly helped to erode traditional party loyalties. In recent years, both major parties have been split, and been seen to be split, on major issues of public policy: the Common Market, immigration, incomes policy, Northern Ireland. The gradual decline of class feeling in Britain, and the increasing tendency to reject all class identities, have greatly weakened the most important single tie that once bound British voters in- to the social structure. But, above all, both major parties have failed to solve the enduring problem of Britain's economy. Economic issues have mattered far more to British voters than any others since the mid 1960s. Both parties have come to power claiming to be able to put the economy to rights: Labour in 1964, the Conservatives in 1970, Labour again in 1974, the Conservatives again in 1979. Both parties have failed. This is the major single reason so many voters have turned against both parties. The trends described so far are long-term; but, in addition, certain short-term forces operating since May 1979 have further damaged the two major parties (though speaking of the Conservatives and Labour as "the two major parties" may be

TABLE 2 Decline in Support for Labour's Traditional Ideological Positions among

Labour Identifiers

1964 1970 F1974 1979 (%) (%) (%) (%)

In favor of nationalizing more industries 57 39 50 32 In favor of spending more on social services 89 60 61 30

In favor of close ties between Labour, trade unions 38 32 29 n.a.

Who do not believe that unions have too much power 59 40 44 36

Source: British Election Study, University of Essex.

12 PS Winter 1982



becoming an anachronism). The Conservatives have been hurt by the disastrous per- formance of the economy since they took office, with 3,000,000 unemployed and in- flation actually higher than under Labour; the November 1981 Gallup Poll reported fewer people saying they would vote Conservative at an early general election, 26 Y2 percent, than have expressed an intention to vote for either major party since 1945.

Labour has been damaged by its continuing move to the left, by widespread reports of Trotskyite and other extreme-left infiltration into the party, by a bitter struggle for the party's deputy leadership, and by the election to the leadership itself of Michael Foot, an aging left-winger without either popular appeal or, it seems, the ability to hold the party together; during several months in late 1981 the proportion of voters thinking Foot was doing a good job as leader of the opposition was lower than at any time since Gallup started asking the relevant question nearly thirty years ago. To anyone looking closely at the available evidence (though it must be said that precious few did look at it) it was clear by the end of 1980 that there existed a large potential market for some completely new political force. Moreover, in general terms it was clear what kind of new force British voters were looking for: a party or grouping that would be moderate rather than extreme, centrist rather than right-wing or left- wing, progressive but in favor of free enterprise and against socialism, committed to the welfare state but suspicious of big government, tied to neither business interests nor the trade unions, above all a party or grouping that would have the great virtue of not being either the Conservatives or Labour.

But, above all, both major parties have failed to solve the enduring problem of Britain's economy.... This is the major single reason so many voters have turned against both parties.

Politicians Act

In one sense, such a third political force already existed, and had been doing quite well in recent years: the Liberals, now led by an energetic and popular young politician named David Steel. But the Liberals were handicapped by the fact that none of their leaders had ever held national political office; they simply did not look plausible as an alternative government. They were also handicapped by the fact that for half a cen- tury they had been a permanent minority party, sometimes doing reasonably well, sometimes badly, but never able to convince more than a handful of voters that they had a real chance of winning. Given Britain's "first past the post" electoral system, the Liberals could only break through if they could convince enough voters that they had a chance of breaking through. This they were never able to do. They remained in 1980 (if they will forgive the expression) the John Andersons of British politics. But then suddenly, in a matter of weeks in the winter of 1980-81, everything changed. With a speed that astonished everyone, and which still leaves many of the participants (and many journalists and politicians in the other parties) breathless, the whole landscape of British politics was transformed. Very simply, what happened was this. Many Labour politicians had long been unhappy about the gradual leftward drift of the party, about its increasing tendency to adopt, in opposition, policies that could not possibly be carried out in government (or would have calamitous consequences if they were) and, in particular, about the increasingly large antiparliamentary, even antidemocratic element present in the party's constituency branches and the trade unions. They were also, some of them, very unhappy about the majority of the party's apparent determination to withdraw Britain from the

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European Community if Labour were ever returned to office. A former deputy leader of the party, Roy Jenkins, viewed developments in the party with growing dismay from his vantage point as President of the European Commission in Brussels, and as early as November 1979, in a well-publicized lecture, called for a strengthening of the "radical centre" in British politics. The phrase "breaking the mould" of the existing party system began to be familiar.

Thirteen Labour M.P.s and one Tory broke away to form the SDP in March of last year....AII fourteen M.P.s were taking their political lives in their hands-and they knew it.

But the decisive events took place inside the Labour party. At its conference at Blackpool in October 1980, the party voted in favor of unilateral nuclear disarmament (and the closing down of American nuclear bases in Europe), withdrawal from the Common Market without a referendum (even though a referendum had been held to confirm British membership in 1975), the mandatory reselection of Labour M.P.s as Labour parliamentary candidates (making it easier for left-wing constituency activists to oust moderate members of Parliament not to their liking), and the election of Labour's leader, not as hitherto by M.P.s alone, but by an electoral college in which constituency activists and the trade unions would play a large role. Later, at a special conference at Wembley near London in January 1981, the party voted to reduce M.P.s' share of the vote to choose their own leader to 30 percent of the new electoral college, with the constituency parties also to have 30 percent and the trade unions (often under the influence of Communists and others hostile to the traditional Labour party) no less than 40 percent. This was the last straw for many Labour M.P.s and supporters, in particular for a group of moderates who had begun to come together the previous summer as "the gang of three": David Owen, foreign secretary in the previous Labour government; Bill Rodgers, transport minister in the same government and a former general secretary of the Fabian Society; and Shirley Williams, another former Fabian general secretary, who had served in the last government as education minister but had lost her seat in Parliament in the 1979 election. Before Wembley, the three began seriously to con- sider forming a new party. After Wembley, joined by Jenkins, they formed a Council for Social Democracy as an interim move pending the setting up of the new party.

Originally, the intention was not to launch the SDP until the summer or even the autumn of 1981 (setting up an entirely new national political party takes time); but events acquired their own momentum, and the Social Democratic party came into being in London on March 26, 1981. Its advent was welcomed by David Steel, the Liberal leader, and most members of both parties took it for granted from the outset that the two parties, rather than oppose each other in the constituencies, would need to form an electoral-and indeed a more general political-alliance. Steps to forge the alliance were taken throughout 1981 and into the winter of 1981-82. The name "Social Democrats" for the new party chose itself. Many in the party had wondered whether Social Democratic might not sound too abstract, too socialist, too un-British even. But the newspapers and television needed to call the new grouping something. They began to use the phrase Social Democratic, nobody seemed to ob- ject, and the name stuck. Thirteen Labour M.P.s and one Tory broke away to form the SDP in March of last year. If you had asked any of them at that time what they thought of the new party's electoral prospects, they probably would have replied very cautiously, saying that at the most the party might just win 30 percent of the vote at the next election, might just 14 PS Winter 1982



capture as many as 30-40 seats, might just conceivably win enough support to hold the balance of power in the new House of Commons. Whatever the students of voting might say, no new British party had succeeded for more than 60 years, the press was intrigued but on the whole skeptical, the entire enterprise was a complete leap in the dark. All fourteen M.P.s were taking their political lives in their hands-and they knew it. The SDP, it is easy to forget, was born as much in desperation as in hope. In fact, the new party took off like one of those giant rockets rising from Cape Canaveral. Only a metaphor of this order can capture the speed and scale of what happened. Throughout 1981, disillusioned (and frightened) Labour M.P.s continued to desert the party; by early December a total of twenty-three had done so, all but one of whom had joined the SDP. Labour thereby lost nearly one-tenth of its total parliamentary membership. Even more spectular was the new party's success with the electorate. Beginning in January (even before the launch), the SDP-Liberal Alliance (even before it had been formed) leapt into the lead in all of the opinion polls-and stayed there during the whole rest of the year. The replies in November 1981 to Gallup's normal voting intention question were: Conservative, 26 /2 percent; Labour, 29 percent; Liberals, 1 5 percent; Social Democrats, 27 percent. When Gallup went on to ask respondents how they would vote if the candidates in their constituency were Conservative, Labour, and Social Democrat/Liberal Alliance, the responses were:

Conservative 25? % Labour 28% SD/Liberal Alliance 43%

The poll findings were impressive enough; but they were fully matched by the results of both local and national by-elections (the British equivalent of American special elections). According to an analysis by Peter Kellner in the London New Statesman (November 27, 1981), the Alliance won 23 percent of the seats they fought in local by-elections between mid-May and mid-July, 45 percent between mid-July and mid- October, 67 percent between mid-October and mid-November; in these elections, the two previously "major" parties virtually collapsed.

... the new party took off like one of those giant rockets rising from Cape Canaverel.

The results of the three parliamentary by-elections fought between the launch of the party and the end of last year were, if anything, even more striking-and of course received far more publicity. On July 16, Roy Jenkins secured 42 percent of the vote in the safe Labour seat of Warrington, badly squeezing the third-place Tories (whose vote declined by 75.3 percent as compared with the 1979 general election). On Oc- tober 1 2, a Liberal, William Pitt captured Croydon North-West, a seat that had hither- to been marginal between the Conservatives and Labour and where Pitt himself has previously done badly. Most astonishing of all, on November 26, Shirley Williams captured Crosby, one of the safest Conservative seats in the country. Williams won 49.1 percent of the vote (fighting where the SDP had never fought before). The Conser- vative vote fell by 30.2 percent as compared with 1979. Again, the third party, in this case Labour, was badly squeezed; Labour's proportion of the poll fell by 62.6 percent. For the record, Table 3 sets out the facts of the last year's Alliance by-election successes. The figures in the table speak for themselves. They have no parallel in previous British electoral history.

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TABLE 3 Voting in British By-Elections, 1981

Warrington Croydon NW Crosby (July 16) (October 12) (November 26)

Percent of votes cast Conservative 7.1 30.5 39.8 Labour 48.4 26.0 9.5 SDP/Liberal 42.4 40.0 49.1

Percent change from general election Conservative -21.7 -18.9 -17.2 Labour -13.2 -14.1 -15.9 SDP/Liberal +33.3 +29.5 +33.9

Percent swing from Conservative to SDP/Liberal 27.5 24.2 25.6 Percent swing from Labour to SDP-Liberal 23.3 21.8 24.9 Proportion of 1979* vote lost at by-election

Conservative 75.3 38.3 30.2 Labour 21.4 35.2 62.6

Source: The Times (London), Nov. 28, 1981. *After adjusting for change in turnout.

Prospects

All the evidence suggests that the SDP as an electoral force is here to stay. The British party system has been radically, and almost certainly permanently, changed. The prospects of the Alliance actually winning the next British general election (in late 1983 or early 1984) must be reckoned good; the chances of the new grouping's winning enough parliamentary seats to hold the balance of power must be reckoned excellent. Does this mean that the SDP together with the Liberals has definitely established itself as one of Britain's two major parties for the 1980s and 1990s? The answer to a question put in that form must be: No, not yet. For the following five reasons: (1) The SDP/Liberal Alliance will probably not break down; but it could. Many of the best prospects for the Alliance had always been good prospects for the Liberals, and were in seats where the Liberals had already adopted candidates. The SDP is insisting on fighting half of the most winnable seats for the Alliance. If this is to happen, there are many seats in which the Liberal candidate will have to withdraw. At the beginning of 1982, it is still not entirely clear whether this will happen. (2) The SDP policies in some fields, e.g. continued membership of NATO and the European Community, are clear; but in some other fields, e.g. incomes policy and housing, they are far from clear. At the moment, many voters are simply projecting their own preferences onto the new party. When the SDP has had time to develop its policies in more detail-i.e. by the end of this year-it seems probable that some voters, suddenly aware of discrepancies between their views and the party's, will revert to their former loyalties. (3) Party identification with the two older parties is declining in both incidence and intensity; but, of course, hardly anyone has yet developed a strong identification with a party that has at this point been in existence for less than a year. Volatility has worked for the SDP so far; it could still work against it. The few polls that have asked relevant questions have found that intending SDP and Liberal voters feel much less close to their parties, or to the Alliance, than do Conservative and Labour voters. 16 PS Winter 1982



(4) People like the SDP and its leaders; the public response so far has been over- whelmingly favorable. But it will not have escaped the reader's notice that the rise of the SDP is very largely a function, not of its own popularity but of voters' alienation from the two older parties. During the Croydon by-election last Ocotber, Gallup asked potential voters for each candidate whether their choice reflected a positive liking for their own party or mainly dislike of the other parties. The answers, set out in Table 4, tell their own story. Members of the Alliance ought to be, and probably are, disturbed by the figures in the right-hand column. The SDP has a long way to go before it establishes a real hold on the affections of large numbers of voters.

(5) Finally, it goes without saying that the British electoral system could yet defeat the Alliance, especially since its support is very evenly spread across the country-unlike that of the other two parties, which is more clustered geographically. The Alliance could in 1983/84 win well over 30 percent of the vote yet win only two or three dozen seats in Parliament. All this is true. Caution is called for. Yet the prospects for the new third force look good, much better than even a few months ago, especially since there seems little prospect either that the Conservative or Labour party will move back toward the political center, or that the British economy will improve sufficiently between now and 1983/84 to enable the Thatcher administration to stage a dramatic recovery. In any case, whatever happens, British political scientists will be having a ball.

TABLE 4 Reasons for Voting, Croydon North-West, October, 1981

Conservative Labour Alliance

Like their party 38 45 25 Dislike others 41 39 58 Both equal 15 9 12 Don't know 6 7 5

Source: Gallup Poll, Daily Telegraph (London), October 22, 1981.

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Whatever Is Happening to the British Party System?

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