Alistair Clark - Political Parties in the UK

CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL STUDIES SERIES

Series Editor: John Benyon, sometime Professor of Political Studies, University of Leicester, UK

Published

JANE BURNHAM and ROBERT PYPER

Britains Modernised Civil Service

CLYDE CHITTY

Education Policy in Britain (3rd edn)

ALISTAIR CLARK

Political Parties in the UK (2nd edn)

DAVID DENVER, CHRISTOPHER CARMAN and ROBERT JOHNS

Elections and Voters in Britain (3rd edn)

WYN GRANT

Economic Policy in Britain

WYN GRANT

Pressure Groups and British Politics

DEREK HEATER and GEOFFREY BERRIDGE

Introduction to International Politics

DILYS M. HILL

Urban Policy and Politics in Britain

RAYMOND KUHN

Politics and the Media in Britain

ROBERT LEACH

Political Ideology in Britain (3rd edn)

ROBERT LEACH and JANIE PERCY-SMITH

Local Governance in Britain

ANDREW MASSEY and ROBERT PYPER

Public Management and Modernisation in Britain

PHILIP NORTON

Parliament and British Politics (2nd edn)

PAUL WHITELEY

Political Participation in Britain

Alistair Clark, under exclusive licence to Macmillan Publishers Ltd, part of Springer Nature 2018

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission.

No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 610 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS.

Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First edition 2012
Second edition published 2018
by PALGRAVE

Palgrave in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of 4 Crinan Street, London, N1 9XW.

Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.

ISBN: 9781137577092 hardback
ISBN: 9781137577108 paperback

This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Writing this second edition of Political Parties in the UK was not quite as straightforward as it seemed when I agreed to do so after the 2015 general election. Events since then have seen an unprecedented amount of turmoil in UK party politics. This has included: the 2015 and 2016 Labour leadership contests and resultant intra-party disputes; the 2016 Brexit referendum; chaos within the Conservative Party as the post-Cameron leadership was fought over, and ongoing conflict over Brexit; 2016 Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish elections; an unexpected 2017 Northern Irish election; and the snap 2017 general election, which saw the Conservative Party lose its majority. Significant events pre-dated 2015 however. Longer-term consequences of the 2014 Scottish independence referendum were also still unfolding. The territorial divergence in party politics between the four constituent parts of the UK remains one of the biggest, unresolved difficulties in holding the UK together in the longer term.