Cancelled by the political extremes

Is the two-party system near collapse?

Mel Stride MP

In a political landscape saturated with banalities and the stench of rank opportunism, a recent utterance from a Conservative leadership contender has, against all odds, struck a chord with me. In today’s Observer magazine, aspiring Prime Minister Mel Stride has dared to articulate a concern that echoes my own disquiet. He warns:

“There’s nothing wrong with populism to the extent that it means that there are serious issues that people feel should be addressed, because that’s politics. That’s right and proper. But I do get very concerned when I see populism through the lens of setting one group against another, setting up the bogeyman, not really coming up with solutions but trading on negativity and division. That worries me a great deal, and I don’t want to see my country go that way.”

The prescience of this statement is striking, as it underpins the central thesis of this newsletter: In a country shackled to a two-party system, the failure of either party is an unmitigated disaster. For nigh on a decade, it appears that one of our venerable political institutions—be it Labour or Conservative—has been steadfastly committed to malfunction.

Here’s my thesis: In this digital age, the grand coalition of the two-party system is being dismantled by the incessant clamour of social media. Platforms that allow for rapid congregation of disaffected groups have eradicated the creative ambiguity once enjoyed by political parties in the bygone era of print. The ruthless vilification by figures such as Owen Jones, who busies himself with excommunicating Labour’s pragmatist leaders, is a testament to this. Likewise, the marginalisation of One Nation Conservatives, whose pragmatic approach to the economy or Europe fails the rigorous purity tests of their more doctrinaire colleagues, reveals the same trend.

What, then, is the remedy? The calibre of party leaders is undoubtedly significant, yet insufficient in isolation. The discord within my own party—a mélange of Social Democrats and Marxists in the age of Twitter—poses a formidable challenge. Equally, the Conservative Party grapples with its own ideological schism between the Hayekian liberals and the Burkean traditionalists. Can these factions coexist under the same political canopy? I remain sceptical.

The inevitable conclusion of a divided political system’s collapse is the adoption of a PR-based electoral system that accommodates multiple parties. However, do we truly desire a polity that ensures perpetual parliamentary representation for extremist factions on both ends of the spectrum? Moreover, will the electorate tolerate the post-election negotiations necessitated by proportional representation, accustomed as they are to decisively ousting governments they’ve grown weary of?

The prospect leaves me profoundly relieved to no longer be an MP, for it is this generation of Parliamentarians who must navigate the potential demise of two-party politics.

Strange as it may seem for a former editor of a magazine titled Liberal Demolition, I find myself increasingly in accord with the Liberal Democrats, in the sense that I have to work hard to establish where both parties disagree. As a progressive, pro-European Social Democrat no longer confined by the class-based identity of my youth, I acknowledge that proportional representation would irrevocably alter all existing parties. Yet it would also facilitate the expression of progressive values across Labour, the Liberal Democrats, segments of the Greens, and even factions within the Conservative party.

So, kudos to Mel Stride for injecting a rare moment of sagacity into the Conservative leadership contest. His remarks have sparked a much-needed reflection.