What would politics in Britain look like with the break up of the old power blocks?

What might party splits do to alignment of political parties in England? There would be six parties with Parliamentary seats in England, but how long would that last before mergers began?

The threat of 'splitting the party' has rarely been thrown around in British politics more than it is these days. The rumours of a Labour split rumble on and now the threat of a split in the Conservatve party has returned - issued by the disgruntled Brexiter right wing.

Could we be on the cusp of some major realignment of politics? It's unlikely to be that easy.

The power of the status quo in British politics can not be overstated. While there have been major splits and political realignments before, they have still, ultimately, kept to a two-party form - with one broadly conservative and the other broadly progressive.

Historical Realignment

The biggest shift took a little over thirty years to achieve the new alignment. The beginning was the split of the Liberal Unionists from the Liberal Party in the 1890s, under the leadership of Joseph Chamberlain. The group banged a particularly patriotic and jingoistic drum, supporting Empire and colonialism and opposing Home Rule for Ireland.

Chamberlain's Unionists very quickly aligned with the Conservatives - forming a decade long government. But it was not enough to break the Liberals, who afterward led Britain up to the Great War. But as the Liberals did so, they helped laid the foundations for their own ousting from the two-party supremacy.

In the early days of the Labour movement, trade unionist candidates stood with Liberal backing. When the movement resolved to form a party, the Liberals supported it with an electoral pact that supported Labour into winning it's own seats and building a Parliamentary presence.

Following the Great War, the National Government that had led the country through the war - a coalition of Conservatives, Unionists and Liberals - finally broke up.

Having absorbed the Unionists prior to the war, the Conservatives were now the dominant force - especially as progressive voters being divided between two Liberals factions and the newer Labour Party.

There were a glut of elections in the subsequent interwar period. In them, the Conservatives remained the usually largest party. But the Labour party would win it's first governments as a minority during this time under Ramsay MacDonald as they became the second largest party ahead of the Liberals - even after the Liberals reunited.

However, the onset of the Great Depression split the Labour party as it split others and ushered in another period of Conservative dominance - which would complete a political realignment thirty years in the making.

Members of both the Liberals and Labour would support the Conservatives under a National Government banner that would last until the Second World War - splitting from their parties to become known as Liberal National and National Labour respectively - and led by the expelled Labour leader Ramsay MacDonald and his National Labour for four years.

The whittling away of the Liberals and the continued use of First-past-the-post (Fptp) voting ensured that, as the Consevratives absorbed their National allies, a new two-party system would emerge from the war years. A two-party, Conservative-Labour domination that has persisted since.

Contemporary Realignment

The splits threatened in contemporary politics, if they could actually break out of a mould that has lasted for more than seventy years, would split the Big Two parties into at least four parties.

These would be: a right-wing Brexiter party, the continuing and nominally centre-right Conservative Party, a centrist Pro-European party, and the continuing centre-left Labour Party - splits that would lean British politics rightwards.

Including the Liberal Democrats and the Greens, politics in Britain would have six parties, just in England, with seats in Parliament. The obvious reaction would be for these new groups to try and form alliances under the present Fptp voting system. But if those efforts were frustrated, a move to some form of Proportional Representation might finally be contemplated.

Big questions remain, however. How many MPs would be prepared to actually make the leap to a new party? Brexiter Tories claim to have 80 MPs willing to rebel. And it is easy to imagine, from MP resistance to Corbyn, that a fair number might join a breakaway from Labour - if it were popular.

How many of the Pro-European moderate Tories would be willing to leave to join a new centrist party formed by Labour breakaways? And would the Liberal Democrats merge with such a party to form one big 'Democratic' party?

This last option is the one that, if it worked, might most drastically change the political landscape. But it feels like the moment for such a move has past - a chance not taken by Tony Blair when he had the power and popularity before the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

More likely is a standoff between four factions as they try not to trip over each other and figure out who their allies might be in an election. The winner, perhaps, may be the party that manages not to split apart. As ever, the safety of the status quo is a powerful draw - even when it is ineffectual and mired by factional infighting.

For progressives, the desire is for plurality. For several parties that work constructively together for broader goals, even when they don't agree on priorities. If a split on the centre-left helps stop the bickering and sniping, it will be welcomed. If not, it could be a long time before we see a truly progressive government.

References

'Brexit plan: 80 MPs will reject Chequers deal, says ex-minister'; on the BBC; 10 September 2018.

Stephen Bush's 'Leaving Labour: why a party split is now inevitable - For some disgruntled MPs who accept that Corbynism is here to stay, a clean break is now a case of when and how'; in the New Statesman; 22 August 2018.