Talk:List of political parties in the United Kingdom/Archive 1

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Archive 1

I thought

I thought that some of the comments were either redundant, or POV - we already categorize by general leaning, and can discuss details either with a paragraph on each, or on their page - what do you think?

Also, isn't the official title of the Conservatives the Conservative and Unionist Party?2toise 10:53, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Vote For Yourself Rainbow Dream Ticket

I don't think it's fair to identify them as a 'joke party'. They appear to be entirely earnestly serious. Morwen - Talk 16:08, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

I have moved Veritas to Minor UK Parties as Robert Kilroy-Silk, its former leader, no longer sits as a Veritas member of the European Parliament but with the Non-Inscrits (unattached MEPs).

London Assembly

For the sake of consistency, does anyone object to listing the London Assembly as an elected body (as per the Electoral Commission website http://www.electoralcommission.gov.uk/regulatory-issues/partylinks.cfm ? If not I will slot it in after the Northern Ireland Assembly. Sceptic 18:31, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Political parties with representation in the London Assembly

Sceptic 17:26, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

It looks fine to me, although I wonder how useful having all these lists at the top of the article is. Perhaps instead we should have a list of political parties with elected representation and columns indicating the number of seats they hold on the various Parliaments and Assemblies? Warofdreams talk 01:39, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
Oppose This does not seem appropriate for this page: the London Assembly is a local government body - is it intended that we begin to add the standings in all the (many) English local government authorities?--Mais oui! 02:24, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Simplify list

A possible way to simplify the lists of parties with representation on various bodies would be to include a table along the following lines. What do you think? Warofdreams talk 03:04, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Party Representation Comments
United Kingdom Scotland Wales Northern Ireland Europe
Democratic Unionist Party 9 N/A N/A 33 1 Unionist party in Northern Ireland
Sinn Féin 5 N/A N/A 18 1 Republican party in Northern Ireland. Do not take their seats in the British House of Commons.
Looks promising. Worth a whirl.--Mais oui! 14:21, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
I like it, though I think 'House of Commons' is a better title than United Kingdom; could imply that it includes partisan House of Lords members Robdurbar 17:03, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
One could include House of Lords membership as well, of course. Bondegezou 17:21, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Blaenau Gwent People's Voice Group

How should the Blaenau Gwent People's Voice Group be represented? One MP and one Welsh AM are connected to the BGPVG, although neither actually used BGPVG as their description on the relevant ballot papers. Bondegezou 17:21, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Should defunct parties be placed in a separate article?

I see there is much confusion with people moving current parties into the defunct list by accident. Would it be a good idea to reduce the size of the aticle to put defunct parties in a separate list and maybe rename this list List of current political parties in the UK ? Sceptic 13:08, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm starting to think that this whole article could do with signficant reworking. Splitting off defunct parties might be an idea, but at present the length doesn't really make it a necessity. Warofdreams talk 00:16, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

No republican party?

Is there no organized party in the UK, other than Sinn Fein, that openly opposes the existence of the monarchy? --Trovatore 06:51, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

The Scottish Socialist Party, and indeed most of the socialist organisations, do. The Revolutionary Democratic Group make it a main plank of their programme - but they are tiny. There is, or was, a very small Republican Party of England. We have a little information on it at English People's Liberation Army, a minor terrorist organisation thought to have been linked with it in the past. Beyond that, republicanism is common among left-wingers in the Labour Party, but has never been party policy. Warofdreams talk 13:41, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
Well, I asked because none of the party descriptions, except Sinn Fein, use the word "republican". But it raises another mildly interesting point: So there's no officially republican right-of-center party, then? What about right-of-center parties with a significant internal republican tendency? --Trovatore 20:26, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
I can't think of any. Organised republicanism in the UK, as opposed to a generalised dislike of the monarchy, tends to be associated with the left-wing, and with nationalist organisations outside England - which generally see themselves as being left-wing to some extent. Warofdreams talk 01:06, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
Hm, what about the English Democrats, or the libertarian area within UKIP? Those would seem to me natural places for republicanism to take root. But maybe it just seems that way to me because I'm American, and classical liberalism here is historically connected with anti-monarchism. (Also my entire knowledge of those parties comes from Wikipedia, so I could be off-base about them in the first place.) --Trovatore 08:17, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
Both organisations explicitly include support for a constitutional monarchy in their programmes. The English Democrats seem one of the least likely parties to have republican members. UKIP may claim to be libertarian, but while there are members of the party who will call for the repeal of some drug laws, in my opinion, the general party position is pretty traditional Conservative. On searching for republican right-wingers, I found the Conservatives for a Republican Future, but this appears to be a barely active discussion group - ah, it's been set up by the Republic campaign. This has the support of various Labour, SNP and Plaid Cymru elected members, and one or two Lib Dems, but no declared members of right-wing parties. Warofdreams talk 22:52, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
On several points:
Although Sinn Fein are anti-monarchy, "republican" in an Irish context (in fact "Irish Republican" is a better term) primarily means a supporter of a republic across all of Ireland. Some individual SDLP members, including their current leader, have said they are "republican" when discussing the monarchy, but I don't know if they have an official policy on how the head of state should be decided in the "UK minus Northern Ireland".
I think "RESPECT" have explicit policy opposing the monarchy and this will probably transfer into both post split groups.
As for right wing republicans this is an interesting state of affairs. First off there is a very big difference between an attitude of "if it ain't broke don't fix it" and strong active support for the monarchy. Active republicans within the Conservative Party are not that noticable but it should also be noted that the Conservatives have long ceased to be the "King's men" party that the Tories were (indeed one of the key points in the transition from Tories to Conservatives was when they found themselves in almost direct conflict with the monarch of the day in the early 1830s) and positive enthusiastic support for the monarchy is not exactly forthcoming either. Partially this is because few see it as under threat at the moment. But it's also noticable that hardly anyone ever actually cites the monarchy when trying to define any of the parties in this country, but rather uses positions on economic and social policy. So if it were to become a big issue there's no obvious simple reason why some politicians on the right might not come out in favour of a republic. (There are, for example, prominent republicans in the front ranks of the Liberal Party of Australia.)
Politics in each country tends to diverge a bit from the flow in other countries because of different historical experiences and contemporary issues. In one era & country "secularism" may be found on the radical left-wing, in another combination on the conservative right-wing. This really reflects what the issues of the day are (e.g. the role of religion in the state or issues around "multiculturalism"). Timrollpickering (talk) 21:23, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Liberal Democrats

According to Liberal Democrats, the Lib Dems have 62 seats in the House of Commons. However, this page and the infobox say 63. Which is correct? Cheesy 06:36, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm, I thought that the Lib-Dems moved slightly to the right after 1999, as per the political compass Asha28 (talk) 16:48, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Economic Left-Right

There's a big problem with talking about left-right politics in the UK today: Labour, Tories & LibDems are all basicaly centre-right wing. They all champion free market economics, and suggest similar rates of taxes. If we really want to be objective, our definitions of left and right should not change! Instead we need to be very careful when we say that 'Labour...now claims the "centre ground" of British politics', and differentiate between the centre of public opinion in the UK, and a constant, objective centre. I suggest using the political compass as a guide as to left/right position. What do peeps think??? Asha28 (talk) 21:07, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh, BTW. BNP are not economicaly right-wing, they are economicaly centralist, but socialy authoritarian, a similar position to Hitler's NAZI party. No I'm not trying to have a go at anyone (at the moment), just point out that Hitler wasn't really right-wing either. Asha28 (talk) 21:07, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

I think I need convincing on the reliability of your source (http://www.politicalcompass.org). Who is behind that website? Is it an individual or an organisation? Are their findings verified by a third party source? If the claims are not verified then at best they are a primary source of research and Wikipedia only accepts primary sources reluctantly when alternative tertiary or secondary sources are not available. Road Wizard (talk) 21:21, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
Touche, I'll look into it... but may I state that the info in the current edit is completely sourceless! The current discriptions are confusing. Everyone has a different POV about the left-right scale, because there are few hard-and-fast measurements of how left/authoritarion/right/liberal an individual/party/group is. At least if we have some standardisation of the terms, we can compare more easily.
There are a few different two-dimentional political position representations, but I think that the political compass is one of the most accessable & easy to understand, while remaining scientific Asha28 (talk) 18:49, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
Sorry Guys, nothing's come up from digging around trying to find out who is behind the political compass. It remains useful but unverifiable Asha28 (talk) 00:31, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm trying to sort out the Right/Left descriptions on this page 'List of political parties in the United Kingdom' and seem to have come across some opposition. Please allow me to explain...

I think this is largely due to the illusion that the centre ground of British politics is static: It's not! Even over the last 30 years, a huge sweep to the right has occured, first with Thatcher pulling the Tories right, then New Labour abandoning socialism and shifting their policies in line with the old Tory ones, then the LibDems slowly drifting after them, until there is really very little difference between them all on an economic scale.

However, because the general population has also accepted the new right-wing thinking, Labour are still viewed subjectively as 'a little bit left of what people think' and the Tories as 'a little bit right of what people think'.

Using measures like this that are in a constant state of flux is misleading, unscientific, and opposed to the principles of neutrality. We've put ourselves in the position of the blind leading the blind and it's very hard (on wikipedia) to make people realise that their traditional views of left and right are biased towards current trends.

Consensus is not a subtitute for neutral, scientific, objective POV (The world is flat is the traditional example I believe)

Asha28 (talk) 14:34, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

This issue tends to come up more on the individual party pages rather than here but the issues are one and the same (and it's ridiculous to have the two giving different outcomes). In a strong two party system left and right at any one moment is generally defined by the positions of the traditional parties of the left and the right, not by some dubious website like political compass. It is POV to repeatedly change particularly the Labour Party description to a variant of "right" when it's a member of the Socialist International, sits in the Party of European Socialists and is almost the classic definition of successful centre left party. Ditto the other parties (and I think trying to reclassify the Lib Dems, whilst admittedly a problem to define since they dropped their "never one thing nor the other but somewhere in between" position in the mid 1990s, on the basis of every new policy statement is messy in the extreme). Calling the changes "neutral, scientific, objective POV" is setting up a strawman and radical changes that are against the long standing consensus, especially when the changes are based on dubious or unclear methodology, is flawed. Such changes should have consensus - the fact they have not been made by others is a sign that your POV is not widely considered NPOV. Timrollpickering (talk) 16:51, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
...And yet we still have the shifting sands problem of defining left and right differently at different points in history. In Nazi Germany the white rose was a extremist liberal group. In Soviet Russia, Nick Clegg's policies would have been considered right-wing. Comparing policies internationaly is also a problem: A right-wing politician in China may be to the left of a left-wing politician in America... and even the same policy may be considered in a different light when faced with a change of public opinion. Perhaps a solution would be to define absolute and relative positions differently, and this is what I tried to do in the most recent edit, stating that Labour had moved right, (embraced neoliberal economic policy), but in doing so became the centre of British politics. Can you suggest any other solutions. May I also say that Labour joined these international Socialist groups back when they were a Socialist party. Asha28 (talk) 17:33, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
We cannot define anything as that would be original research. We need a reliable secondary or tertiary source to make such a definition for us. Unfortunately I have yet to see anything that comes close to convincing me that the Political compass is either reliable or a secondary/tertiary source.
It is at best a primary source and cannot be used to sustain controversial statements per WP:PRIMARY. Road Wizard (talk) 20:57, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
Apologies for trying to search for truth rather then fact, I Should have listened to Dr Jones. Asha28 (talk) 00:31, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

What about something like this (chopped down a bit) for the LibDems, as found on the LibDem page... States sources for not placing them on the Political Left-Right at all, and quotes PC as opinion rather than fact...

The Lib Dems and their predecessor Liberal party have been the centrist party of United Kingdom politics.<ref name="centristyougov">"Left vs Right". YouGov. 2005. Retrieved 2008-03-21.</ref> Placing Lib Dems in the left-right political model may not accurately represent their ideology. The party does not place themselves in the left-right axis; former leader Charles Kennedy said that they were neither to the left nor the right.<ref name="leftright">"Quiet battle rages for Lib Dem soul". BBC. 2001. Retrieved 2008-03-24.</ref> Using a two-dimensional scale, Political Compass defined the Lib Dems as social libertarians and economically liberal, and New Labour and the Conservatives as economically liberal and socially authoritarian.<ref name="politicalcompass">"UK Election 2005 – a different way of seeing it". Political Compass. 2006. Retrieved 2008-01-28.</ref>

For Labour...

...Traditionaly Left-wing, has now moved rightwards to claim the centre ground of British politics... (This describes their ideological shift, without making an explicit statement about where the centreground is)

Conservatives...

No, their description is good...

The one that really niggles me is the claim that the LibDems are moving Left...care to point me towards a source... Asha28 (talk) 01:08, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps we need a new page Political positions of British political parties or somesuchlike to try to collect views on the major (oh dear, into that debate) parties, including the views of members of the party itself, views of members of opposing parties, views of thinktanks/lobbying bodies, public perception, academic policy analysis ...etc. What do you think? Are there enough political analysts out there... people who are doing work like political compass, but with more weight behind them? Asha28 (talk) 20:09, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Notability

The discussion above about minor parties brings me to Wikipedia:Notability (political parties). I really think this could work out, I hope the discussions can restart and allow this proposal to become policy doktorb wordsdeeds 17:29, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Minor parties - links?

A few minor parties (English Independence Party, British Public Party, SOS! Voters Against Overdevelopment of Northampton) have recently been up at AfD, and it seems that the general consensus is for us not to have articles on them. Unless or until this changes, when a minor party's article is deleted, would it be acceptable to replace the link on this page with a direct link to the party's website? Or should we leave them black, and let the interested rely on Google for information? Tevildo (talk) 00:27, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I think the links should be included using {{Cite web}} (or similar template), otherwise there is no reference available to show the parties even exist. Having references for each party listed here would certainly help with preventing vandalism. Road Wizard (talk) 12:33, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
...but a party's own page wouldn't be a reliable source. It seems to me that the ones that are listed at the electoral commission can count as referenced, since we have a link to the electoral commission in the external links section. I don't think adding the same citation to every line of the page would help.
I don't think having external links in-line is appropriate. We wouldn't accept it on any other article. I think we need to be clear that a party either does or does not meet the notability criteria. If it does, it gets an article, external links and all, and if not, not. I'm new to this page, though, and I haven't spent much time editing lists, so I'm going to leave it a few days before I edit the page - comments, anyone? --HughCharlesParker (talk - contribs) 14:15, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
Even a self published source is better than nothing, especially as the party register at the Electoral Commission will only provide a list of current parties (defunct parties are removed once they are no longer registered). However a third party source such as a newspaper article would indeed be preferable. You may wish to view List of people who have spoken to both Houses of the United Kingdom Parliament as a good example of a list that includes references (the article has Featured list status, so it is a good benchmark for any list).
In terms of notability, you may wish to consider an important point of the primary notability criteria, "Notability guidelines give guidance on whether a topic is notable enough to be included in Wikipedia as a separate article, but do not specifically regulate the content of articles... The particular topics and facts within an article are not each required to meet the standards of the notability guidelines; instead, article content is governed by policies such as No original research and Verifiability and the guidelines covering the use of reliable sources and of trivia sections." Regards. Road Wizard (talk) 14:38, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure I see what you're saying here. You end by saying that article content is governed by the various policies, but you start by saying that even a self published source is better than nothing. Wikipedia doesn't consider a self-published source to be reliable; WP:RS and WP:V both say we should use reliable, third party sources. If a party has an entry on the electoral commission's website we can list it. If the only evidence of its existence is its own webpage, it shouldn't be here. --HughCharlesParker (talk - contribs) 01:41, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
What I said was that a self-published source is better than no source at all and that a third party source is better than a self-published source. I don't see anything controversial in that statement. Road Wizard (talk) 05:36, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
What's controversial is that you're explicitly disagreeing with one of wikipedia's fundamental policies. A self-published source is not better than no source at all, except in certain circumstances that don't apply here. --HughCharlesParker (talk - contribs) 08:27, 12 September 2008 (UTC)
At no point in this discussion have I disagreed with policy and certainly not explicitly (Please check the definition, as I cannot see anywhere that I have expressed "specific, clear, or detailed" disagreement with policy). I have not said that self published sources are sufficient for retaining information in an article. What I have said is that a statement supported by a self published source is better than an unsupported statement as it helps editors to cut out the cases of obvious vandalism. Road Wizard (talk) 14:10, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

← OK. We disagree on the statement "a self-published source is better than no source at all". You think we can use them, I think we can't. Let's not go backwards and forwards on that any more. Let's conclude that discussion with what I think we do agree on:

  • The electoral register is a reliable source (obviously), and any party listed on it gets an entry on this page. Any party that isn't listed there, and whose existence we can't verify with other reliable, third party sources, doesn't get an entry here, as per WP:Verifiability.

On that basis I've removed some parties from this list. We also need to go back to the original question: should we take out the inline external links? We have four options:

  • Leave them as they are.
  • Move all the links to a new ==External links== section at the end.
  • Change them to {{cite web}} style references, as Road Wizard suggests, so that they appear in the "Notes and references" section.
  • Take them out altogether.

It seems to me that we can't leave them as they are. Wikipedia:External links#External links section and Wikipedia:Manual of Style#External_links say that external links should be in an external links section at the end, not in-line.

I think either of the last two options would be ok, but I think we should take them out altogether. Any party listed here has a source backing it up already, either in the form of the electoral register, or with citations on its own page if it has one. A party is either notable or it isn't; if it is, we should create a page for it, and put the external link there. If it isn't, we shouldn't include the link here instead. Comments, anyone? --HughCharlesParker (talk - contribs) 12:51, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I refer you to the notability guideline I quoted above. Notability only judges whether a subject is significant enough for its own article, not whether facts about it should be included in another article.
As there is a severe lack of sources on this article at the moment I think we need to put effort into adding citations to each entry. Registration with the electoral commission is sufficient sourcing for inclusion in the current parties list, but this still needs citation (perhaps we could include the citation: <ref>Party currently registered with the Electoral Commission as of September 2008</ref>?). External links to party websites or third party publications could then be used as a supporting citation (having a link to the party website may assist in finding additional sources as the website may refer to third party publications about themselves).
Once a party is no longer registered with the Electoral Commission and does not have any currently elected officials it should be moved to the Defunct parties section. Again citations will be needed, but without an Electoral Commission registration the key reference should come from a third party source (a reference to results of an election that the party fought should be a sufficient minimum to prove that the party existed), again this can be supported by citation of the party website (or web archive of the party website if it has been deleted).
Where a registration does not exist and there are no third party, reliable sources the entry should be removed. Road Wizard (talk) 13:58, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
We need to be careful here about removing entries too quickly. One of the parties you removed today, South Tyneside Alliance, has currently elected councillors, so they do exist and should be easy to verify. Looking at their official website they call themselves the "South Tyneside Alliance" but also mention an alternative title of "South Tyneside Progressives". Comparing that to the register there is a party called the "South Tyneside Progressives". I will restore this one to the list now.
It might be best to flag ones we can't verify with the {{fact}} template and allow a few days to find a valid reference before the entry is removed.
As a separate point, additional citations can be found for some of the defunct parties from historic records of accounts at the Electoral Commission website. Road Wizard (talk) 16:48, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
My apologies, it appears the "South Tyneside Progressives" was already listed and you have just removed the double entry under "South Tyneside Alliance". Road Wizard (talk) 16:51, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
I have converted the Minor English party section to a table format and included individual citations for when the Party register was last checked. Would this be an acceptable form of referencing or can you suggest any improvements? Road Wizard (talk) 18:00, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
I have found a List of Political Parties either renamed or deregistered since 2002 which would be a useful source for the defunct parties. Road Wizard (talk) 19:30, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Seat Representation

Why are the conservatives listed as having 71 seats, despite above it says they have 197, Labour as having 354 despite it saying 355 above and the Liberal Democrats as having 13 despite it saying they have 63 seats above. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.42.43.211 (talk) 16:25, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Comparison Table of the politics of UK Political Parties?

I have been thinking for many years that the 'man in the street' has nothing to refer to when trying to sum up the ideologies of the different political parties of the United Kingdom and also when deciding who to vote for at Local, European and General Elections.

This may be a factor in low turn out at elections. Many citizens do not know enough to vote for any particular political party, some even voting for the party their parents voted for without even knowing the party's policies.

The Party Political Broadcasts only mention the positive issues and obviously omit the negative. Is there anyone whom has the time, inclination and also impartiality to design a similar table to the US one shown on the Wiki page that the link below links to? [[1]]

Suggested parties and their policies could be: Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrats, Green Party, BNP, UKIP, (and English Democrats Party/Plaid Cymru/SNP/Sinn Féin).

I think this is sadly lacking anywhere and it would be impossible for the media to do because of their lack of impartiality.

Crd3000 (talk) 17:24, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Is this list supposed to be complete or not?

Firstly I have to proclaim a vested interest here because I have started a political party. Be that as it may, this page appears to me to be a list of the political parties in the United Kingdom as registered with the electoral commission. http://registers.electoralcommission.org.uk/regulatory-issues/regpoliticalparties.cfm?ec=%7Bts%20%272009%2D07%2D14%2016%3A08%3A26%27%7D Even though I am not good at this sort of thing, after repeatedly asking for help I tried to add best of a bad bunch myself and some twit removed it on the grounds that it was ‘not notable’. If it was a list of countries then no one would remove Belgium on the grounds that was ‘not notable’. Would anyone go to the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Orthoptera_and_allied_insects_recorded_in_Britain and remove the Bog bush-cricket on the grounds that no one has ever seen one, let alone noted it? Tempted though I am, the answer has to be no. The original vision of Wikipedia was to put the sum total of human knowledge on the internet. Obvioulsy there have to be some rules, as was pointed out to me earlier you cannot have people writing articles about ex girlfriends but this is nowhere near that situation. There will come a time, I hope, when Best of a Bad Bunch deserves its own page but I would admit that it is too soon for that. Right now I am just trying to get the brute fact that it exists accepted by Wikipedia. I will return to the question in the subject. Is this supposed to be a complete list or not? If it is not then I don’t see the point in having it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Andylear (talk • contribs) 15:18, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't

I don't think either the Green Party nor UKIP can fairly be described as "major parties". Yes, they have a handful of MEPs, but their size is simply not comparable with the three large parties. I suggest that parties with MPs/MEPs/MSPs/MWAs are listed seperately under the appropriate titles, and that only liblabcon parties are called "major". 80.255 20:09, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I've tried to do this, although I think the page still needs a little further tweaking. I've reduced the number of layers, as the third and fourth tiers display in the same font, which was confusing, and I've moved the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition out of the parties represented in the NI assembly list, as they've just lost all their seats. Warofdreams 20:28, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Much better, certainly. The problems that remains is northern ireland - I would consider the 4 major parties (SF, SDLP, UU, DU) to be exactly that - major, within the province. The 3 "major parties" also have very little influence in NI. I'm not entirely sure how this circle can be squared... 80.255 20:58, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)
The term 'minor party' has a legal definition under UK electoral law, it means one that only contests parish elections (see http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/electoral_commission_pdf_file/0006/13488/RP1M_19352-6297__E__N__S__W__.pdf). I suggest changing 'minor' to 'smaller' throughout would solve this issue and remove the difficulties mentioned above? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.110.190.56 (talk) 00:04, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Ehh

I dunno what i'm doing wrong here but every time I edit this page, lumps of random text spring up in the saved version that I didn't put there and weren't in the preview. I tried undoing but that had the same effect. Anyone have any ideas what i'm doing wrong? Jh39 (talk) 23:44, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

It looks like you accidentally deleted some text, including half a reference. The "random text" is the remaining part of the reference. It all seems to be fixed now. Warofdreams talk 09:04, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, that's what i thought at first, but i undid my edit and there still seemed to be bits of reference in the text that weren't there before. Also I swear I didn't touch any references. In fact, there are none in the bit of the article i editted. Jh39 (talk) 14:00, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Political parties with elected representation at a national or international level

Rather than jump in and be bold, and make this change, I will discuss it here first.

Surely the English Democrats Party doesn't belong in the table of parties with elected reps at national/international level. The table is zeros accross the board, implying no elected reps.

No comment of their worthiness/unwoirthiness is implied, it just struck me as an error to be corrected.

Catwhoorg (talk) 12:21, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the note - I entirely agree and have removed them from this section. Warofdreams talk 15:34, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
uising the same logic, I removed an entry added for the 'Yorkshire Independence Party'. At zeros accross the board it does not belong in the table. Catwhoorg (talk) 20:18, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Humanist Party

The humanist party site looks like it's been hacked (note the link to 'buy gold) http://www.humanistparty.org.uk/

There is also a link to veritas on the left side bar. Should they be removed from this list? 90.206.110.238 (talk) 19:39, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

They might be defunct (if they were ever really that active in the first place). Not noticing the front page of your website being hacked isn't a good sign that they're a going concern. Fences&Windows 00:18, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

United People's Party

Could someone explain to me why the UPP have been put under 'joke parties'? I know that they're small to the point of irrelevance, but unless I'm missing something, they are a serious party. 91.104.31.252 (talk) 00:10, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

The entry was added by an editor who has only a brief contribution history. As the entry is unsourced and has no related article I have removed it from the list. Road Wizard (talk) 20:21, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Table notes

A lot of the statements in the note section of the table seem dubious or out of date and none of them are sourced. Should we we looking to a political text book or similar for that material? --Snowded TALK 18:36, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

The best on-line source, for at least the existance of the party!, is the Electoral Commission and/or Register of Political Parties. You're right to cite concerns on the notes possibly being out-of-date, I think this page has suffered from not being adequately maintained for some time doktorb wordsdeeds 20:49, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

The British freedom party

The British freedom party is not a joke party and I have removed the link. Grow up. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Greenpenwriter (talk • (Greenpenwriter (talk) 23:20, 22 January 2012 (UTC)contribs) 23:17, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Categorisation of Parties

To get round the debate of what a major or a minor political party is, why don't we re-organise so that the parties are broken into 3 main categories:

(i) parties with parliamentary or assembly representation; (ii) parties without parliamentary or assembly representation; and (iii) defunct parties.

This way we avoid the subjective distinction between major and minor. For example I think a good case could certainly be made for the SNP, Plaid Cymru, the Ulster Unionists, DUP, Sinn Fein and SDLP to be considered major parties, but others disagree. The benefit about the split I have suggested is that it is merely factual.

What do people think?

Big Jim Fae Scotland

If UKIP are considered a major party shoudn't the BNP be? Regardless of their ideologies, they are doing significantly better than UKIP, based on the local election results 2007, in most wards the BNP beat them, as well as coming very close, if not beating some of the major parties [Lib-Lab-Con].

What do people think?

UKIP aren't actually called a major party in the article. Only the big three are. UKIP are in the table below, which lists parties with an MP, MEP, MSP, MLA or AM. Local election results are not taken in to account. While it would be possible to change this, there'd need to be a consistent proposal. Warofdreams talk 00:58, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I recently saw a reference to The Communist Party of Wales, which is not on the list. However, the website that google cames up with (www.welshcommunists.co.uk) is for the Welsh section of the Communist Party of Britain. Have the CPB pinched the CPW's web-site? Or maybe the CPW have never existed as a separate entity? Any ideas, anybody? GrahamN 14:51, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I'm a bit dubious about the description of Labour as "centre-left to centre-right". Surely John McDonnell, Diane Abbott, Jeremy Corbyn, Bob Marshall-Andrews and other Socialist Campaign Group MPs could be regarded as the left (rather than merely centre-left), particularly if Lib Dems are categorized as supposedly centre-left? And why are Lib Dems "centre-left (previously centre)". Surely the Lib Dems have moved rightwards since the 80s just as all the other parties have. The tax changes they propose now are less radical than their 1992 proposals. The only reason for supposing that they have moved leftwards would be if we define left/right in relative rather than absolute terms. But if we define left/right in relative terms, then how can Labour be regarded as right of centre? Incidentally, is it really impartial and NPOV to suggest that Lib Dems are left of Labour, bearing mind that (1) Lib Dem conference voted in favour of post office privatization, a position rejected by Labour, (2) the Lib Dems are clearly moving rightwards (e.g. the Orange Book - though this isn't official policy), (3) in 2002 the Lib Dems condemned Labour's rises in the minimum wage as "dangerous" and said that these minimum wage rises "threatened" support for the very principle of the MW - note, the Lib Dem policy here is more rightwing even than the Blairite policy (the policy of the Labour right), let alone the policy of the Labour left. (4) Lib Dems are in coalition with Tories in town councils up and down the country - municipally, Lib Dem-Tory alliances are very much more common than Labour-Tory alliances. (5) A small leftwing minority of Labour MPs opposed the Kosovo and Afghan wars. Lib Dems were the strongest supporters of the former and only one Lib Dem (ironically a Labour defector who has now defected back to Labour) opposed the Afghan war - which is smaller even as a proportion,let alone in absolute terms. --217.44.206.197 20:06, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

Sorry about the above ramble but I wanted to explain my reasons. Another thing is that Labour MEPs have just voted in favour of enforcing the EU working-time directive (whereas Lib Dems have voted to continue with the opt-out). So I'm going to go ahead and change the text. 217.44.206.138 19:24, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

Yes, you could also come with a list of reasons why the Lib Dems are to the left of Labour, and not all of your five points are uncomplicated left/right questions, but you clearly illustrate the case for your changes. Warofdreams 10:08, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

== Why are the English Democrats down as a far-right party? I'd call them right-wing, but they're not racist or anti-democratic. Supporting the legalisation of cannabis is hardly a far-right thing to do.


Confusion with the English Independence Party perhaps? The EIP support the death penalty (for about five million people by the look of it), believe a woman's place is in the home, and are overtly racist. Compared with them the EDP are positively centre-left. Anyway, listing of EDP has changed now. == Green Party description needs expanding. Republicanism is not false but not exactly representative of their alignment. They are economic left-wing, socialist, cultural/social liberals, support proportional representation and pacifism. Call for complete EU reform. 87.115.198.118 (talk) 22:28, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

ongoing AFDs on UK political parties

There are about 14 simultaneous AFDs about UK political parties going on:

  • For this one the list-item notability of the Patriotic Socialist Party has been disputed, with deletion of its entry in the List of UK political parties by this edit.
You may consider participating. --doncram 20:02, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Major Political Parties in UK

This section seems ridiculous to me. The heading title is Major Political Parties in the UK but lists only three. For sure these are the biggest in the UK, but the article implies that the parties with pluralities in Scotland and NI, to whom the First Ministers belong, are not major. This section should be renamed, deleted, or should include at least SNP, Plaid Cymru and the major parties in NI. --81.178.71.82 (talk) 07:17, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

The newest political party is The Minimal Government Party. (http://theminimalgovernmentparty.blogspot.com/) They aim to use technology to create true democracy in the UK, the people will decide policy according to the countries needs. MPs will be obselete saving the tax payer billions and removing personal self interest from the political proccess. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.3.221.182 (talk) 15:36, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps it should be Parliamentary Parties? As of the 8th May 2015, it could be argued that there are only two major political parties, as between them, Labour and Conservatives have 563 of the 650 seats. The SNP could well be considered a 'major' party, given they have virtually complete control of Scotland with 56/59 seats; I believe the real problem is the term 'major'. It is subjective, rather than factual. If we apply the percentage of votes cast, then the largest three parties are Conservative, Labour and UKIP; however the SNP, have a larger party membership than UKIP, so in that respect - party membership numbers - they would be the more 'major' party.

I believe a re-write of the headings is in order. It's ludicrous to continue suggesting the Liberal Democrats are a major party, if they are so are the DUP (same number of MPs) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ragebe (talk • contribs) 13:14, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Vote share information?

Would it be useful to include share of the vote for recent general elections within the main table? This seems to be an increasingly prominent[1][2][3][4] issue in the UK. Possibly the last three elections to show changes in share? Tiny beets (talk) 18:58, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/politics-blog/11606354/Whatever-you-think-of-Ukip-or-the-Greens-our-electoral-system-is-robbing-them.html
  2. ^ http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/09/australian-born-leader-of-uk-greens-blasts-british-voting-system
  3. ^ http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/generalelection/general-election-2015-sixty-per-cent-of-people-want-voting-reform-says-survey-10224354.html
  4. ^ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/11595947/Letters-The-Prime-Minister-must-now-consider-electoral-reform-for-the-sake-of-the-Union.html

UKIP are not, nor have they ever been 'Far-Right'

This is inaccurate and misleading. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jakatbroughshane (talk • contribs) 20:12, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

The main UKIP article has academic references that provide that political range, and we work from third party sources. There is a discussion on the UKIP article, so best to resolve there then amend this entry accordingly. Radical right or right wing populist are being discussed ----Snowded TALK 05:28, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

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Political parties with elected representation at local government level only

Yorkshire First (4 councillors) and Putting Hartlepool First (3 councillors) need to be moved into this table from the "Political parties with no elected representation" section. There may be a few others like this. --LukeSurl t c 17:14, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

Federalist Party

There appears to be a Federalist Party of the United Kingdom although there is currently no article for it. I never heard of it until one of its candidates ran for Ruyton and Baschurch in the recent Shropshire Council election. Tk420 (talk) 08:55, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

I am no expert in creating an article for a political party so I think it calls for more practiced hands. As for its colour the logo on the Federalist Party website looks like jungle green but the Shropshire Council uses a dark grey to represent it in its results page.Tk420 (talk) 18:45, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

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Sortable Columns

The "Increase" "Decrease" "Steady" symbols on before the membership figures prevent that column from being sortable. I would suggest removing the symbols and just having the figures. Also perhaps because it's not clear when the increase/decrease/no change is from. Thoughts? --CarlDurose (talk) 14:10, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

Those arrows are merely trinkets and window dressing. If they're getting in the way of a more useful function then you can get rid. Function over form, every time. doktorb wordsdeeds 15:01, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

Brexit Party

As I'm not that great at Wiki editing, I was wondering if someone could add the new 'Brexit Party' to the parliamentary parties list, as it now has 5 MEPS, including Nigel Farage. References can be found on the EU Parliament site, Nigel Farage and Westmonster Twitter, and the westmonster site Freddied056 (talk) 18:27, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion

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Brexit Party Membership

I recently put that the Brexit Party had 60,000 members. Someone else removed it, stating that registered supporters and members were different things.

They are not. A registered supporter is a supporter who is registered, who gets benifits that casual supporters don't. A party membership is the same. If anyone wishes to challenge this view, please reply to this. I will happily listen and if it is a good, valid point which warrants the edit, then I will change my mind. Freddied056 (talk) 14:06, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

The original source, the Brexit-sympathetic Sun on Sunday says they are supporters. Unless a reliable source says they're "members" then we shouldn't really be redefining them. Sionk (talk) 14:31, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

The official party endorses the figures. As far as I know the other membership figures all come from the official political party. Therefore, as the number is endorsed by the party, it is the same as any other membership figure Freddied056 (talk) 15:15, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Where does the official party endorse its membership figures? Sionk (talk) 17:00, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

On their Twitter:

Check out @brexitparty_uk’s Tweet: https://twitter.com/brexitparty_uk/status/1119875301343997954?s=09 Freddied056 (talk) 18:22, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

That clearly says "supporters" too. So we clearly have no evidence of membership, I think it's fully justified to remove the figure until some convincing proof emerges. Sionk (talk) 20:01, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Look - I say again. REGISTERED SUPPORTERS ARE THE SAME AS MEMBERS! They have the same benifits and exclusives under a different name. How hard is that to understand? Freddied056 (talk) 06:33, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

We're not playing the game here - registered supporters are not the same thing as members, its a way of saying you have lots of support without giving them any say - Farage has been fairly open about that. Also we need third party sourcing. Any claim you make needs to be backed up by that -----Snowded TALK 07:34, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
  • sigh*. Tell me, how different is a member of the Conservative or Labour party to a registered supporter of the Brexit Party? There is no difference. The Brexit Party hasn't yet had a conference, but at the first one I'm sure registered supporters will have the same benifits as if they were 'members'. The definition for member is very loose. Just accept that registered supporter is another word for member. Plus theres already a reference there, I have more if you really insist Freddied056 (talk) 10:38, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
Sigh all you want - show a third party source to support your view and we can look at it until then you are wasting everyone's time -----Snowded TALK 11:25, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Right, if the group of you dont wanna face facts, then so be it. I'm not gonna battle any longer Freddied056 (talk) 06:02, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Our Nation

I've noticed a few times that Our Nation has been removed from the list of minor parties with no representation. I have citations to prove it a party, and I will re-add it. If anyone has an issue with this please discuss it here.

Best wishes,

Wikieditor 123000 :) Wikieditor123000 (talk) 17:36, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

We don't usually care about whether they exist or not. Our issue is with WP:GNG. Remember that Wikipedia is not a depository for every single party ever to have lost their deposit. They've got to be notable. If you can prove that they have electoral success, notable media coverage, or other general proof of importance, they might have a chance. If they just exist without doing anything important, they won't. doktorb wordsdeeds 22:47, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Brexit party local government

The brexit party have 2 people in local government as of july the 13th 2019, source https://twitter.com/BBCRadioManc/status/1146446174783778816 http://democracy.rochdale.gov.uk/mgUserInfo.aspx?UID=150 https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/liberal-democrat-councillor-stuns-colleagues-16563821 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Keshoii (talk • contribs) 17:44, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Advance revived?

Advance is in the list of defunct parties, but in the December 2019 General Election it is putting up a candidate in the Wokingham constituency. KeithC (talk) 15:45, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

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2019 Election

Would it be more beneficial if we wiped the seat data for the House of Commons from now until the General election on Dec 12th? Seeing as Parliament has been dissolved for a long time, maybe it's a bit late. At the very least I propose that on the day of polling day, we blank all the House of Commons seat data and then update it at the end of the election coverage + when all the seats have come through.

In order to avoid confusion, it would probably be best that on polling day we blank the seat data for the House of Commons and then leave the article until the morning. Any objections or does this sound good? --EdwNL (talk) 22:25, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Defunct or Historical

What's the difference between the "Defunct parties" and the "Historical parties", other than the former have a little more detail in a colourful table? 194.28.127.54 (talk) 03:35, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

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Editing mistake?

@TrentBrownlee: this edit has an edit summary that talks about moving the Scottish Libertarians to the right place, but it cut the file size by more than 14K bytes, which doesn't usually happen from a "move". It looks like a wide swath of text got left out. Was this a mistake? --Trovatore (talk) 22:18, 9 June 2021 (UTC) Definitely, please fix sorry I didn't do that on purpose. My computer is on the fritz I'll lay of editing til I get it fixed — Preceding unsigned comment added by TrentBrownlee (talk • contribs) 23:45, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Britain First

Given that Britain First was deregistered by the Electoral Commission, shouldn't it be under defunct parties? Alextheconservative (talk) 17:34, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

Update needed for "No UK Representation"

The Social Democratic Party needs to be removed from this section and moved across to the appropriate local governance. As of writing they have now a single councillor. 2A02:C7E:2A49:CE00:4D6A:ED0C:3D17:8511 (talk) 15:54, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

This article

This article has been re-organised more times than I've had hot dinners, and it is currently a complete mess. Cant we find some standardised way of arranging the parties G-Man 13:17, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC) This hasn't been updated for the 2022 local elections — Preceding unsigned comment added by Natean (talk • contribs) 23:36, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Do we need the distinction between major and minor parties? The major parties are already listed seperately on the worldwide list of political parties, while the list of major parties is getting longer and longer - I think merging them into their appropriate categories might help. Warofdreams 19:41, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Parish and Town Councillors - Shouldn't we just ignore them?

There is no consistency in the reporting of parish and town councillors, who have little practical powers. Citing https://news.sky.com/story/local-elections-2023-voter-id-how-you-can-register-contested-seats-and-everything-else-you-need-to-know-about-the-may-vote-12845083 - "Parish, community and town councils operate at a level below district and borough councils, and in some cases under unitary authorities. They provide help on issues such as allotments, bus shelters, play areas, local grants, littering, graffiti, fly posting and dog faeces." In many/most cases, political affiliations (if any) don't even appear on their ballot papers, and this is an article about political parties. At least 10% of positions are filled without the need for elections, as the number of parish/town candidates does not exceed the number of vacancies. I propose columns for "Parish councillors" are removed. The data is all but unverifiable, no one has the time to keep track of the comings and goings here. Respected objective sources like http://opencouncildata.co.uk ignore them entirely, and so should we. The alternative, the status quo, has another glaring defect. Only those with an axe to grind, contrary to NPOV, will bother to update the parish/town councillors in their patch. Albin-Counter (talk) 20:43, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

I think we should examine much more closely our relationship with Parish councils precisely for the reasons you mention. One important factor here is the existence of residents groups and local interest microparties who really shouldn't have articles on Wikipedia because they're usually one man bands or merely Parish council level grouplets. I've had great success deleting unnotable political party articles from Wikipedia and if I can start doing the same for any more I'd be happy to help doktorb wordsdeeds 23:37, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
Thank you. No one else has commented for ten days, so I presume there's general agreement that the columns serve no purpose. They are perpetually not just incomplete but almost entirely empty, with the columnar total amounting to far less than 5% of the total number of parish1/town council seats nationally, because almost no one, parties included, bothers to update these. The blanks are actually misleading.
As I'm the originator of the idea, I believe it is better for someone else to implement the removal. If you have the requisite editing skills, doktorb, I'd be more than happy for you to carry out the work. Albin-Counter (talk) 02:41, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
Albin-Counter I don't understand why you created a user page for my account to write this:
"Are you intending to continue with your campaign of uninformed and disruptive editing and general harassment? Or have you learned your lesson?"
These are completely unsubstantiated accusations. I have not uninformedly, nor disruptively edited this page nor any other, neither have I harassed anyone. I welcome comments from other users on whether they think my edits have crossed any of the above. I don't spend my time contributing to Wikipedia to have unfounded accusations hurled at me and would politely ask that you act respectfully. WP:CIVIL. Helper201 (talk) 05:58, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
What possible connection is there between your comment above, irrespective of its merits or demerits, and the question of whether we should continue to purport to present (inaccurate) information about parish councillors from this page?
As to your track record, it was documented and criticised by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Thryduulf in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Helper201 (most recently in August 2022, under the heading "Please do not remove citations"). It is disturbing that, despite that perceived shot across your bows, you persisted. Over and out on the matter. I apologise if I've ruffled your feathers while educating you.
Do you have something to contribute on the matter of attempting (fruitlessly) to track numbers of parish and town councillors by party affiliation, given that there are 10,000-11,000 parish/town councils in England alone? Thanks. Albin-Counter (talk) 21:24, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
The thing is I never even removed any citations from this page. You’re getting up-in-arms about me adding a template expressing that there were excessive citations for a single claim. I didn't actually remove any at all. All I was saying was that it would be helpful to condense down how many sources were being used in order to state one claim in regards to UKIP councillors. 8 citations for one claim is clearly an excessive amount. Also, combining information from multiple sources to reach a conclusion falls under WP:SYNTH anyway. In regards to parish councillors it would be helpful to include how many each party has but I think to note where they are all governing on this page would be too excessive. It also depends on how accessible such information is. Helper201 (talk) 10:58, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Conservative and Green Short Names

I've noticed that the short names for the parties aren't the plurals that are used by the media, people and in the Conservatives case, their logo. I think that the plural should be used due to this. ValenciaThunderbolt (talk) 14:38, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

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