An Unexpected Journey: The Smaller Parties in Parliament and at the Polls

In terms of vote share, the 2017 election appeared to usher back the two-party politics that had characterised British (or at least English) politics for much of the post-war period. But the resulting hung parliament and the deep divides over Brexit meant a much larger parliamentary role for the UK’s smaller parties. At the same time, fractures within each of the ‘big two’ meant that there were also regular calls for the formation of ‘new’ political parties, with the existing alternatives to Labour and the Conservatives not always seen as credible.