A political party is an organised group of people with at least roughly similar political aims and opinions, that seeks to influence public policy by getting candidates elected.
What is a political party?
About politics of the UK
The politics of the United Kingdom functions within a constitutional monarchy where executive power is delegated by legislation and social conventions to a unitary parliamentary
democracy.
The United Kingdom's parliamentary system sees executive power exercised by the British government, appointed on behalf of the monarch.
The British political type is a multiple-party system.
Function
History
Since the 1920s, the two dominant parties have been the Conservative Party and the Labour Party. Before the Labour Party rose in British politics, the Liberal Party was the other major political party, along with the Conservatives.
The Conservative Party, officially the Conservative and Unionist Party and colloquially known as the Tories,[19] is one of the two main political parties in the United Kingdom, along with the Labour Party. It is the current governing party, having won the 2019 general election, and has been the primary governing party in the United Kingdom since 2010.
The Conservative Party was founded in 1834 from the Tory Party and was one of two dominant political parties in the 19th century, along with the Liberal Party.
Labour Party
The Labour Party is a political party in the United Kingdom that has been described as an alliance of social democrats, democratic socialists, and trade unionists.[18] The Labour Party sits on the centre-left of the political spectrum. In all general elections since 1922, Labour has been either the governing party or the Official Opposition.
The party was founded in 1900, having grown out of the trade union movement and socialist parties of the 19th century. It overtook the Liberal Party to become the main opposition to the Conservative Party in the early 1920s, forming two minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in the 1920s and early 1930s.
The Scottish National Party (SNP; Scots: Scots National Pairty, Scottish Gaelic: Pàrtaidh Nàiseanta na h-Alba [ˈpʰaːrˠʃtʲi ˈn̪ˠaːʃən̪ˠt̪ə nə ˈhal̪ˠapə]) is a social democratic political party in Scotland. The party holds 63 of the 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament and 43 out of the 59 Scottish seats in the House of Commons in Westminster. It has 453 local councillors of 1,227.
Founded in 1934 with the amalgamation of the National Party of Scotland and the Scottish Party, the party has had continuous parliamentary representation in Westminster since Winnie Ewing won the 1967 Hamilton by-election
Liberal Democrats
Since the 1992 general election, with the exception of the 2015 general election, they have been the third-largest UK political party by the number of votes cast. They have 15 members of Parliament in the House of Commons, 84 members of the House of Lords, four Members of the Scottish Parliament and one member in the Welsh Senedd. The party has nearly 3,000 local council seats. The party holds a twice-per-year Liberal Democrat Conference, at which party policy is formulated.
The Liberal Democrats (colloquially referred to as the Lib Dems) are a liberal[6] political party in the United Kingdom, founded in 1988.
Democratic Unionist Party
The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) is a unionist, loyalist,[8][9] and national conservative political party in Northern Ireland. It was founded in 1971 during the Troubles by Ian Paisley, who led the party for the next 37 years. Currently led by Jeffrey Donaldson, it is the second largest party in the Northern Ireland Assembly, and is the fifth-largest party in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom.
The DUP evolved from the Protestant Unionist Party and has historically strong links to the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster, the church Paisley founded.