A huge majority but is the two-party system on its way out?
The real story of this election isn’t Labour’s landslide but the rise of smaller parties, says Andrew Hammond
Labour’s landslide on Thursday means that election 2024 will, rightly, go down in the history books alongside 1997, 1979 and 1945 as key political moments in the nation’s post-war era.
Yet, the longer-term significance of the ballot may be very different. That is, signs of increased fragmentation of the UK election landscape with Reform, Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and the Greens all gaining seats in the House of Commons.
While the most often discussed parallel with Thursday’s results is the last Labour landslide in 1997, it may be 1906 that is the best historical guide. The huge victory for the Liberals that year helped catalyse an era-defining realignment that led to the modern UK electoral system.
The Liberal victory in 1906 was the culmination of back-to-back landslides early in the twentieth century, in opposite directions, preceded by a huge win in 1900 by the Conservatives. Around 120 years later, the same phenomenon has happened for the first time since in 2019 and 2024 with the stonking victories by the Conservatives and Labour respectively, indicating there may be growing disequilibrium in the political system.
For one, Labour and Conservatives recorded the lowest combined share of the vote for these main parties since the current two party system emerged after the First World War, replacing that of the Liberals and Conservatives.
A second indication of potential disequilibrium in the system is the parlous state of the Conservatives with the party recording on Thursday its worst ever election performance.
So in the volatile, turbulent UK political landscape of 2024, there may be significant possibility of deeper-seated political change underway. However, rather than heralding a new two-party system, what might be dawning is the deepening of a multi-party system akin to multiple continental European countries, heralding a more unpredictable political landscape.
The decay of the traditional two party Labour Conservative post-war system is not a new phenomenon. In the period from 1945 to 1970, Labour and the Conservatives collectively averaged in excess of 90 per cent of the vote, and also the seats won, in the eight UK general elections held in this period.
Yet, from 1974 to 2005, the average share of the vote won by the Conservatives and Labour fell significantly in the subsequent nine UK general elections in this period. This has brought about a significant political change that is, by and large, still unfolding to this day.
The Liberals have perhaps done most to destabilise the two party system, but several other parties have also come to prominence too, including the Scottish National Party (SNP) which currently governs in the Edinburgh devolved Parliament; the Greens, Reform, and Plaid Cymru.
One reason the apparent decline of the two party system may make for a more unpredictable outlook for UK politics is that it is harder for any one organisation to secure a majority government in UK general elections. This is despite the ‘first past the post’ voting system which tends to provide the leading party a significantly larger number of seats in the House of Commons than would be given by a more proportionate electoral system, as was the case on Thursday for Labour.
To be sure, coalitions and the sharing of power have long been a feature of UK local government and devolved parliaments and assemblies outside of Westminster. However, this same dynamic may now become a more regular feature at the heart of the UK Government itself in London.
Until 2010, when the Coalition Government was formed between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives, Labour and the Conservatives had won overall majority governments at every election since 1945. That is, except for the very brief political interregnum between the February and October 1974 elections.
In 2017 too, the Conservatives failed to win an overall majority. Then Prime Minister Theresa May therefore had to reach a co-called ‘confidence and supply’ agreement with the Democratic Unionist Party from Northern Ireland.
Taken together, the UK’s long standing two party system may therefore be giving way to a more unpredictable political landscape. While Labour won big on Thursday, the fragmentation of the UK political landscape may continue apace with Liberals, Reform, SNP and the Greens competing for prominence.
Andrew Hammond is an associate at LSE Ideas at the London School of Economics