I looked up the history of UK Parliament a while ago. Since conception there have only ever been two parties in charge: Conservative (used to be called Liberal) and Labour. Before merges and changes the main groups were called Whigs and Tories, both of which primarily became Conservative. Modern Liberals brought back the original Liberal Party, while Liberal Democrats were formed by part of Labour and part of the modern Liberals. They are pretty much identical in terms of actual change.
The only show of promise is that the Green Party have secured a massive increase in power, and there might actually be a chance of a difference in the next decade.
You’ve got the details a little wrong. The original two were the Whigs and the Tories, as you say. The Whigs became the Liberals who became the modern day Liberal Democrats, who still exist but haven’t been in power outside of being a junior member of a coalition for a century. Tories became the Conservatives, who are still one of the major two and are regularly still called the Tories. There was a faction that broke away from the Whigs called the Liberal Unionists, who merged into the Conservatives, but they’re separate from the Liberals. Labour is not a successor to either of them, though they did make some strategic agreements with the Liberals early on. In the early 1900s, Labour replaced the Liberals as one of the two major parties.
It is still consistently a two-party system. One of the historic parties got replaced and there is a stronger presence for minor parties than there is in the states (see especially the SNP in the past decade and the Tory-LibDem coalition in 2010), but still a two-party system
Shares of the vote in general elections since 1832 received by Conservatives[note 1] (blue), Liberals/Liberal Democrats[note 2] (orange), Labour (red) and others (grey)[1][2][3]
The Conservatives forming from a split in the Liberal party doesn’t mean they’re the same thing.
Labour and Liberal Democrats are two very different parties. Or at least they used to be, until New Labour became a thing…
Our politics are bad, FPTP is bad, but we’re not a 2 party system entirely. The Lib Dems, Greens, SNP, and Reform all manage to have a say in politics and how things are done. They all influence Labour and the Conservatives.
I looked up the history of UK Parliament a while ago. Since conception there have only ever been two parties in charge: Conservative (used to be called Liberal) and Labour. Before merges and changes the main groups were called Whigs and Tories, both of which primarily became Conservative. Modern Liberals brought back the original Liberal Party, while Liberal Democrats were formed by part of Labour and part of the modern Liberals. They are pretty much identical in terms of actual change.
The only show of promise is that the Green Party have secured a massive increase in power, and there might actually be a chance of a difference in the next decade.
You’ve got the details a little wrong. The original two were the Whigs and the Tories, as you say. The Whigs became the Liberals who became the modern day Liberal Democrats, who still exist but haven’t been in power outside of being a junior member of a coalition for a century. Tories became the Conservatives, who are still one of the major two and are regularly still called the Tories. There was a faction that broke away from the Whigs called the Liberal Unionists, who merged into the Conservatives, but they’re separate from the Liberals. Labour is not a successor to either of them, though they did make some strategic agreements with the Liberals early on. In the early 1900s, Labour replaced the Liberals as one of the two major parties.
It is still consistently a two-party system. One of the historic parties got replaced and there is a stronger presence for minor parties than there is in the states (see especially the SNP in the past decade and the Tory-LibDem coalition in 2010), but still a two-party system
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_Kingdom_general_elections
The Conservatives forming from a split in the Liberal party doesn’t mean they’re the same thing.
Labour and Liberal Democrats are two very different parties. Or at least they used to be, until New Labour became a thing…
Our politics are bad, FPTP is bad, but we’re not a 2 party system entirely. The Lib Dems, Greens, SNP, and Reform all manage to have a say in politics and how things are done. They all influence Labour and the Conservatives.