Mini-TL: Minor Parties, Minor Success Stories

This is just a small TL about small British political parties and how they could be more succesful. Nothing huge and it focuses on '97 onwards.
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Part One: The 'Right' Swing
The 1997 General Election was an odd one, Britain was finally throwing the Conservatives out of power after they'd been in for 18 long years. However it wasn't just a time for a large-scale change in the larger political climate, there were a number of smaller parties that began to appear either through large votes or even in one case through a seat in the Commons.

The seat in the Commons was in West Bromwich and had been previously occupied by the Speaker Betty Boothroyd. The vote was split between her, Richard Silvester (Ind. Labour) and Arthur Scargill (Socialist Labour Party)[1]. This mass-splitting of the vote led to Steven Edwards of the National Democrat Party (NDP) win a seat in Parliament, the NDP being a heavily nationalist party.[2] While the constituency was abnormal in that it was a Speakers seat the it did lead to a substantial number of people joining the NDP, some rejoining after having left before while others came from the National Front (NF) and British National Party (BNP).

Alongside this the BNP did quite well votes-wise, as in two constituencies the BNP managed to beat the Liberal Democrats votes. These were in Bethnal Green and Bow (David King) and Poplar and Canning Town (John Tyndall). With these successes for the two far-right parties some believed that they should merge to form a single party, thus drawing on the money of a much larger pool of members. However Ian Anderson (NDP) and John Tyndall (BNP) didn't get on, thus such a merger would have to wait some years.[3]

However not all the focus of the 1997 General Election should go to the near-extreme far-right. The 'Referendum Party' that supported a referendum on the UK's membership of the EU fielded 547 candidates and got around 811,000 votes making it the fourth-largest party by votes. Sir James Goldsmith (the leader of the party) vowed that the party would continue, while there was a mild hiccup along the way when he had a heart attack which he recovered from quickly.[4]

The United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) fielded 193 candidates and they gained around 105,000 votes. This rather poor performance has been put down to the existance of the Referendum Party. Because of this the leader of UKIP (Dr Alan Sked) began talks with Sir James Goldsmith (Referendum party) about a possible merger.

In December of 1997 the Referendum Party merged with UKIP after much debate. Most members of both parties stayed within the party (it adopted the name of the Party of Democracy (PoD)). The leader of the party was Sir James Goldsmith and the Chairman was Michael Holmes, Dr Alan Sked left the party soon after the merger as he believed the party was still "doomed to remain on the political fringes". He joined the Conservative Party not long after.

[1] - IOTL Arthur Scargill stood in Southern Wales.

[2] - On a side note an election for a new Speaker of the Commons was held and Sir George Young (North West Hampshire) of the Conservatives won.

[3] - This dislike is mere speculation.

[4] - IOTL Sir James Goldsmith died from this, not long afterward his Referendum Party dissolved into a pressure group.
 
Part Two: Ripples of '97
Not long after the 1997 General Election in the constituency the elected MP died, thus a by-election was called. In the by-election the Conservative candidate won by a 44% majority, however the other minor parties did manage to gain some votes of their own. For example the Referendum Party candidate took 6.8% of the votes, while the NDP candidate managed to gather 2.8% of the vote which was split with the BNP whom got 1.3% of the vote. This result showed that the minor parties were beginning to gather more support as support for the main-three parties decreased.

Further along in 1997 another by-election was held due to an MP resigning over a scandal. In this election the results were that while the Conservatives kept the seat, they had 37% of the vote, while the Referendum Party gathered up 4.8% of the vote. Again while losing their deposit this did show how the party was garnering Tory support which wavered in the face of John Major losing.

In another by-election in Winchester another important election occurred. The Referendum Party got 4% of the vote, 2.3% more than the Labour Party. This was the worst election result Labour had ever had and was picked up by Tory newspapers rapidly that the party in power couldn't get enough support to beat the Referendum Party (RP). While they felt this would serve to put people off the RP it in fact just led to people noticing it more and its membership levels increased slightly after the Winchester election.

There was one very important event of the year however, this was the resignation of John Major as Tory party leader and the ensuing leadership election. In the last round of the Leadership election it was between William Hague (euro-sceptic) and Kenneth Clarke (euro-phile). It was tense and there was no real pointer as to who would win the election, however many people believed that whomever Margaret Thatcher supported would win the election. These hopes would be smashed though when Thatcher declared her neutrality in the election[1]. The results declared on the 6th of May showed that William Hague had won the election by a single vote, this single vote would plague his leadership for years however as people believed it showed his party didn't have a majority faith in him. It's been argued that this led to the above mentioned performance of the Referendum Party.

Another event of relatively minor importance at the time was the before-mentioned merger of UKIP and the Referendum Party into the Party of Democracy (PoD) which Sir James Goldsmith led.

Two years later another by-election occurred in Leads Central, while Labour retained the seat the Conservative vote was just 10% of the vote, the PoD managed to gather 5% of the vote and thus keep their deposit. While it wasn't a won seat it showed that the PoD was at least mildly viable.

Alongside this in the 1999 European Elections in Britain the results showed high votes for smaller right-wing parties than the Conservatives. For example the PoD won 7 seats overall in the elections, an outstanding result for a young party. In fact in some of the EU constituencies in the UK the Liberal Democrats failed to get any seats, for example in the East Midlands an up-and-coming Liberal Democrat Nick Clegg didn't become an MEP due to the PoD candidate (Robin Birley) who won the election.

[1] - IOTL Margaret Thatcher supported Hague, thus making a lot more MPs support him as well. ITTL she doesn't, which makes the vote much closer.
 
Part Three: The Election of 2001
In the General Election of 2001 minor parties progressed to gain votes. However on the down side one lost its seat, the NDP MP Steven Edwards lost his seat to Labour candidate Adrian Bailey by a 40% margin as his vote percentage decreased dramatically to just 6% of the vote, However while the NDP suffered this loss in general throughout the county the NDP and BNP both made increases in their votes by 0.1% and 0.2% respectively.

Not long after this increase in these far-right parties votes they began proper talks over a merger of the parties, with the new BNP leader Nick Griffin having begun the talks. By the end of December both Nick Griffin and Ian Anderson became joint-leaders of the British National Democrats (BND). At the same time in the 2001 General Election the National Front (NF) vote decreased and according to the BND there were a significant number of NF members that joined their party after the merger.

Alongside this far-right success the right-wing PoD managed to gain a seat in Parliament alongside increasing its votes. The seat was again lost by the Speaker Sir George Young in North West Hampshire.[1] The candidate was Sir James Goldsmith whom won by a 3% majority. Alongside this the vote count of the PoD went up to around 900,000 which wasn't far off their 'million-vote' mark. As well as this the second best result was in Folkestone and Hythe where the PoD (Nigel Farage) managed to gain 12% of the vote with 6246 votes, only allowing Michael Howard a 3% majority in his own constituency he'd held for 18 years. Not long after this success the PoD began to broaden its political horizons, for example it stopped being such a single-issue party and while it continued to focus on the EU it expanded into other domestic and foreign affairs.

It was also a good election for independents. For example the Conservative MP Eric Pickles lost in his constituency of Brentwood and Ongar to Independent MP Martin Bell whom had previously been MP for Tatton.[2] As well as this in Wyre Forest Independent candidate (or Health Concern) Dr. Richard Taylor beat the Conservatives by a healthy 17,000 vote majority.[3]

One of the big effects of this election though was that the Conservative seats stayed at the same number as before. This led to the near-immediate challenging of leader William Hague as leader of the Conservatives.

[1] - A year later he was made a Lord and sat in the House of Lords regularly as a prominent Tory speaker.

[2] - IOTL Martin Bell came second, however with the PoD standing and getting a higher % of the vote Bell manages to win here.

[3] - It may all seem doom-and-gloom for the Conservatives here, however there's been some vote tweaking elsewhere, for example in Eastleigh Conor Burns becomes MP rather than Chris Huhne unlike OTL.
 
Part Four: The Other Election of 2001
Nearly immediately after the General Election Conservative Party MP's challenged William Hague's leadership and he willingly stood down. The contenders for the leadership were: M. Portillo, I. Duncan Smith, K. Clarke, M. Ancram and D. Davis. After the first ballot David Davis was knocked out, Michael Ancram withdrew soon after, then Michael Portillo was eliminated in the final ballot by MP's. The vote now went to a full party membership vote between Smith and Clarke, the result was extremely close however Kenneth Clarke won the election by 1%.
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New Conservative Cabinet (Partial)
Leader of Opposition - Kenneth Clarke
Shadow Deputy Leader and Shadow Secretary of Defence - Michael Portillo
Shadow Chancellor - Michael Howard
Shadow Foreign - Malcolm Rifkind
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Not long after the election of Kenneth Clarke and numerous pro-EU MP's being appointed to posts in the Cabinet the Conservative Party was rocked, many of its own MP's cried out against the sudden watering down of Euro-skepticism within the party. Not only this but numerous members in fact left the party and joined the PoD which they viewed as being more 'conservative' than the Conservative Party was.

In the Ipswich by-election later in the year this was prominent as the Conservatives only got 19% of the vote, while the PoD candidate gathered 10% of the vote (coming fourth). However on the flip-side of this the Conservatives did gain some members and votes from previous Liberal Democrats whom were to the right but were pro-EU.

In 2003 the House of Commons voted on the Invasion of Iraq, this further split Conservative MP's with some supporting the Leader in opposition to the invasion while some voted with Labour on the matter. Sir James Goldsmith voted against the war and thus made the PoD anti-Afghan War.

Alongside this the party Respect was created, this would later be an influential party.

In the 2004 European Elections it was a disaster for the Conservatives. The PoD managed to make huge gains mainly at the expense of the Conservatives, its seat numbers went from 7 to 20 seats. The Conservatives seats shrank rapidly from 36 seats to just 17 seats, less than Labour by 2 seats. After this huge success for the PoD the leader Sir James Goldsmith died of a heart attack, the party was stricken by grief however it had a good pool of candidate to vote for a second leader. The man whom won was the now-prominent Nigel Farage, MEP for South-East England. Not only did the PoD have this huge success but when Nigel Farage stood in the by-election for Hartlepool later in 2004 he gained 15.6% of the vote, while the Conservative candidate only managed to scrape together around 4.3% of the vote. However also noteworthy was Respect almost causing Labour to lose the seat, however Labour won by 300 votes, while Respect took 8% of the vote primarily from Labour.

In the London Assemble Elections of 2004 the PoD gained 4 seats, 1 through FPTP and three through the AMS system. The Conservatives managed 8 seats, thus losing one. In the Mayoral Election however the main three parties got the primary amount of votes still, with Ken Livingstone winning the election.
 
The Party of Democracy are going to be a strong asset for the Labour Party, especially with the real threat of Ken Clarke.
 
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