Political Parties in Britain

Brief history and overview

Prior to the mid-19th century , poltics in the United kingdom was dominated by the Whigs and the Tories. The Whigs were associated with the newly emerging moneyed industrial classes, and the Tories were associated with the landed gentry ,the Church of England and the Church of Scotland.
By the mid-19th century, the Tories had evolved into the Conservative Party, and the Whigs had evolved into the Liberal Party.
This two parties dominated the political scene until the 1920s, when the Liberal Party declinedthe popularity and suffered a long stream of resignations. It was replaced as the main left-wing party by the newly emerging labour Party, who represented an alliance between the trades unions and various socialist societies.
Since then the Conservativeand Labour Parties have dominated British politics, and have alternated in government ever since .The UK is nearly but not quite a two-party system however.The Liberals merged with the Social Democrats because they had very similar views and became the Liberal Democrats, which are now a sizeable third party whose electoral results have improved in recent years.
In recent years.proportional representation-based voting systems have been adopted for elections to the Scottish Parliament .the National Assembly and the UK's seats in the European Parliament .In these dodies .other parties have success.
Traditionally political parties have been private organizations with no official recognition by the state. The Registration of Political Parties Act 1998 changed that by creating a register of parties.

Register of Political Parties

The Electoral Commission's register of political parties lists the details of parties registered to fight electionand their registered name, in the United Kingdom.Under current electoral law . those wishing to fight elections can use only registered party names on ballot papers.

Major political parties in the United Kingom

Three parties dominate politics in the House of Commons .They all operate throughout Great Britain .Most of the British Members of the European Parliament .the Scottish Parliament, and the National Assembly for Wales represent one of these parties :
* Labour Party, centrist to left-wing
* Conservative Party, centrist to right
*Liberal Democrats, cenrist to centre-left