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Introduction
Britain's two-party system, a defining characteristic of the UK polity in the 1950s and the 1960s, is in failing health but there remains some reluctance among political scientists to sign the death certificate. Support for the two main parties, the Conservatives and Labour, is in retreat, falling to 67% of the popular vote at the 2005 general election, the lowest figure since 1918. The Liberal Democrats secured the highest number of seats won by a third party for more than 70 years and minor parties together passed 10% of the vote. These performances are part of a 30-year trend, which indicates that a two-party system no longer operates in the nationwide electoral arena. However, there remain flickers of life in the two-party system, largely because the simple plurality electoral system acts as an artificial life support machine providing Labour and to a lesser extent the Conservatives with some protection from the advance of multi-party politics.
A more nuanced approach is required, one that recognises that the UK does not have a single-party system but multiple party systems, most (if not all) of which are clearly operating at different levels. The distinction between different political arenas (electoral, legislative and executive) and levels of jurisdiction (local, regional, national and European) made by Paul Webb (2000) is a useful one for mapping the decline of the two-party system. Only at the national level does the two-party system cling to life -- although this claim requires the exclusion of Northern Ireland, where multi-party politics is well established, from the national level. Two-party predominance is most obvious in the executive branch, where only the Conservatives and Labour have held office since 1945. Bipolar politics also remains robust in the House of Commons where the simple plurality electoral system has prevented the Liberal Democrats and others from achieving higher levels of representation. In the (partially) reformed House of Lords, non-partisan crossbenchers outnumber Conservative peers in a chamber in which no party commands a majority.
Multi-party politics is more emphatically in evidence at local, sub-national (regional) and European levels. The Liberal Democrats, nationalists and minor parties have achieved their best electoral performances away from Westminster and have secured a greater proportion of seats. The UK Independence Party (UKIP) pushed the Liberal...