New Face of British Elections?
THE HUNG Parliament in the United Kingdom is no more! The Conservatives are now in league via a coalition with the Liberal Democrats, with Conservative David Cameron as the new Prime Minister.
Coalitions, a marriage of convenience, a marriage of expediency, a marriage of power, are all part of the political delicacies of today’s electoral menu. Take your pick. For these odd sorts, pragmatism following inconclusive elections, generally, dictates the constitution of coalitions of all of the above, and maybe others, too; nonetheless, make no mistake about the mostly unplanned nature of the form and content of these coalitions; and we could commit a further error through heralding ‘all of the above’ as planned power sharing; though, indeed, in a latent sense, some ad hoc sharing of this power will ensue vis-à-vis majority/minority stake-holding interests.

Let me say, too, that in their preparations and within the purview of their active radar, the Conservative and Labour Party leaders entertained no avid interest for an alliance with any minority party; this has to be true, particularly, if their pre-election planning blueprints of policy, strategy, and structure for changing the face of Britain is any guide.

In his London Review of Books on David Butler’s Governing without a Majority, Martin Pugh argued that the British electoral system does not have the capacity anymore to provide a clear majority result; there are fewer marginal seats; and for this reason, a smaller number of seats passes on to another party with each 1% swing of votes.

Quote: ‘Coalitions, a marriage of convenience, a marriage of expediency, a marriage of power, are all part of the political delicacies of today’s electoral menu. Take your pick’

Pugh added that a mixture of the minority parties – Liberal Democrats; Scottish National Party; Democratic Unionist Party; SinnFein; Plaid Cymru; Social Democratic and Labor Party; Green; Alliance Party – produces a sizeable minority number of seats in the House of Commons; in the 2010 election, these minority parties obtained 85 seats.

What all this adds up to is that Britain will continue to have inconclusive elections unless the gap between the two major parties’ votes, Conservative and Labor, tops 3.5 per cent. And apparently, some 5 out of 10 elections had gaps equal to or even less than 3.5 per cent.

In recent times, the narrowed margin of votes between Labor and Conservative seem to have become the norm in British electoral results. And this is happening largely because of the loss of supporters from the Conservative and Labor Parties. Bo Särlvik, Ivor Crewe and others in their Decade of Dealignment, noted that since 1970, the Labor Party remains in decline, with good numbers moving toward the Liberal Party, some remaining with the Liberals, while moving on again this time to the Conservative Party; I suspect that there is a constant movement of critical support from both of the main parties; gradually eroding the class nature of British elections.

Class, once a major element of stability in British elections, continues on a declining trail since 1959; in fact in 1979, only 55% voted on the basis of class; driving a wedge on both the Labor and Conservative Parties’ traditional symbolism of being class-based parties. Nonetheless, class was always a stabilizing force because it ensured that Britain had its working-class party, the Labor Party, and the middle to upper class party, the Conservative Party.

Undoubtedly, this poignant erosion of class among the British electorate may not be a lasting feature; for the constant movement of voters facing constant economic and financial crises may induce voters to seek refuge for security purposes in their traditional political homes; this line of thinking has support from Andersen, Yang, and Heath (2006) who noted that people would vote for a party because of what that party platforms can do for them; for this reason, people would not vote for a party because of a class to which they belong; nonetheless, social class in Britain remains a critical influencing factor on social identity across the society.

Clearly, the constant switching of party support may produce some level of electoral volatility; but a greater volatility at election times may be abstention from voting, and not so much the switching of party allegiance.

Nonetheless, the general volatility of the electorate vis-à-vis fewer marginal seats; reduced gaps between the Conservative and Labor parties’ votes; increased number of minority seats in the House of Commons; switching of party allegiances; abstention from voting, among others, are critical factors as to whether the hung Parliament is the new face of British politics.
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