andrewducker | Interesting Links for 11-08-2018

And the extraordinary bowel-straining attendant on the allocation of seats between the Alliance parties in the 1980s.

The difference between the UK and France here is a matter of unenacted political culture, nothing to do with the formal electoral system, or likely to be changed (at least much, or immediately) by an alteration in the latter.

I wouldn't say there's no relationship with electoral systems. Duverger's law tells us that a two-party system emerges from FPTP. France has consistently had two significant parties on the left (broadly: socialists and communists) and two significant parties on the right (broadly: Gaullists and centrists) under the Vth Republic; in the UK those would be factions of the Labour and Tory parties respectively, as splitting would be electoral suicide.

(Note that there is in fact such a thing as the Cooperative Party in the UK, although you'd never know it.)

I already cited Duverger's Law without naming it, in an earlier comment when I wrote, "insofar as the UK's system enables anything, it pushes against there being a strong nationwide third party at all."

As the phrasing might suggest, I don't think much of Duverger's Law as an explanation of political cultures. It pushes, yes, but if it really controlled, then there wouldn't be third parties getting 25% of the vote. The fact is, the US has FPTP and a strict two-party system; Canada and the UK have FPTP, and they don't have a strict two-party system. Why the difference? Duverger's Law has nothing to do with explaining that. It's political culture that isn't dictated by electoral system law.

Unless you're active in the Labour movement, in which case the Co-operative Party is very well-known.

Edited 2018-08-11 18:13 (UTC)

OK, but it doesn't campaign as a separate political party, and news reports don't break results down into Labour + Co-operative the way you see French election results reported as Socialists + Radicals + Other.

I should add that I've heard of the Cooperative Party, albeit only because I've seen candidates in official election returns listed as "Labour and Cooperative" and I looked it up to see what that meant.

As the Cooperative Party has no existence outside the Labour umbrella, and since they first hitched up around 1920 never has, it has no relevance to discussions of third parties in British politics whatever. It's like discussing the National Liberals, especially after the Woolton-Teviot agreement, as if they had a separate existence from the Conservatives. They didn't. End of story.

Edited 2018-08-12 18:55 (UTC)

Interesting Links for 11-08-2018

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