CURRENT AFFAIRS
British Gener(ation)al Elections The British political sphere is one ruled by traditions and symbolism. A recurrent feature more recently added to this ritualistic canon is the description of upcoming general elections as the “most important elections for a generation”. Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron has used that very phrase both in 2010, when the country last went to the polls, and in this year’s campaign. Such maximalist rhetoric is mainly due to the United Kingdom being confronted with similarly fundamental challenges as it was five years ago: whilst in 2010, Britain faced severe economic turmoil, it is the country’s political future that is currently at stake. All signs point towards these May elections resulting in a complete remodelling of Britain’s party political landscape– one that the kingdom’s electoral system of First Past The Post (FPTP) may not accommodate. Similarly to the United States, Britain’s political system is geared towards the competition between two major parties achieving solid parliamentary majorities. Until recently, the political duopoly exercised by the Conservative Party and the Labour Party remained fairly unchallenged. However, over the past years, this balance has been radically offset, with the UK Independence Party (UKIP), the Scottish National Party (SNP) and even the sectarian Green Party gaining increasing sway with voters. Even the battered Liberal Democrats, heavily damaged by their decision to coalesce with the Conservatives, are expected to retain forty-eight of their fifty-six seats. Instead of an even division of seats between Tories and Labour, the House of Commons may thus have to accommodate six parliamentary parties of significant size – a first for the United Kingdom.
Two dominant reasons sign responsible for this fragmentation of the British political landscape: anti-establishment sentiment and re-emerging nationalism(s). Whilst inhabiting different parts of the political spectrum, UKIP, the SNP and the Greens are united by their disdain for the “detached Westminster elite” embodied by the two major parties. In the case of UKIP and the SNP, a rampant English/ Scottish nationalism equally enters into the equation. UKIP is the most enduring sign of this trend, not least due to its charismatic leader, Nigel Farage. His blunt anti-EU and anti-immigration rhetoric have struck a chord with disgruntled Tory voters disenchanted with Cameron’s ‘moderate Conservatism’. Consistently polling at fourteen percent, Farage has become the gravest threat to a Conservative return to Downing Street. At the other end of the political spectrum, Labour leader Ed Miliband is facing a simi-
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lar scenario in Scotland: a red bastion since Margaret Thatcher’s premiership, Labour’s power monopoly in Scotland is crumbling with the separatist, left-wing populist SNP likely to return the majority of the country’s MPs this May. Contrary to expectations, the Scottish Nationalists led by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon have emerged stronger from the lost independence referendum last September. This is mostly due to a substantial devolution agreement between Edinburgh and Westminster, to which both the Conservatives and Labour agreed in exchange for Scotland remaining part of the union, still having to be concluded. Similarly, the SNP benefits from the split the Scottish Labour Party suffered over the question of Scottish independence from which it is yet to recover. Beyond Caledonia, Miliband is facing increasing pressure from a rising Green Party. After decades of progressive centrism under Tony Blair
and Gordon Brown, Labour has alienated a substantial share of its core left-wing vote. As a result, the party’s ideological left is increasingly attracted to the self-proclaimed ‘anti-party’ Green Party with its pledges for extensive social housing and a universal living grant. Paradoxically, the British FPTP system is likely to ensure that this fragmentation of British party politics will not be accurately reflected in the composition of the House of Commons. As the Economist pointed out in a recent leader, Britain may instead be faced in May with the puzzling constellation of the party garnering the third-largest amount of votes (UKIP) only obtaining a sixth of parliamentary seats – whereas the sixth-largest party (SNP) may return the third-highest number of MPs to Westminster. There is indeed a likelihood that particularly UKIP will be reduced to the status of kingmaker in many