Multi-Party Britain

Abstract

In a recent book Professor Giovanni Sartori has described two-party politics simply: ‘We have a two-party format whenever the existence of third parties does not prevent the two major parties from governing alone, i.e. whenever coalitions are unnecessary.’ He then underlines the point in other words:

This is the same as saying that alternation in power is the disting-uishing mark of the mechanics of two-partyism. One may say that ‘two’ differs from ‘three’ whenever third parties do not affect, in the long run, and at the national level, the alternation in power of the two major parties.¹