In the UK a controversy over which parties to include in the televised debates seems to have been resolved in an unexpected manner. Instead of four or five parties (as the dispute originally hinged on the participation of the Greens), the BBC and ITV have announced that they will extend invitations to seven parties to participate.
Those parties are the Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats, UKIP, Greens, and two regionalist/nationalist parties whose participation had not previously been under discussion: the Scottish National Party, and the Welsh party Plaid Cymru. The United Kingdom, like the United States, uses single-member districts and first-past-the-post, not one of the election systems usually seen as conducive to a multi-party system.
Article at yahoo news, which calls this “the demise of the two-party system” in the UK.
via Richard Winger at Ballot Access News.
Perhaps this entire mess in the UK is just what the Commission on Presidential Debates was hoping for to show the US media what a circus this can become if “too many” parties are invited,
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-30955379
The initial dispute, was that David Cameron insisted on the Greens participating if UKIP was allowed to.
Good point, paulie. That might be the case. Neither Conservative nor Labour have responded yet. The Lib Dems are opposed. The Democratic Unionist Party is also kicking up a fuss (they have more MPs than Sinn Fein, SNP, or Plaid Cymru). Truly minor parties like Respect and Monster Raving Loony, and the Cornish nationalists, are also asking to participate. Seems like the whole thing has sort of flown off the rails.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/11364325/Televised-election-debate-plans-in-disarray.html
How many of the parties have agreed to participate? I think this may be a way to effectively cancel the debate. The inclusion of regional parties makes little sense, as they are not competing for most of the seats.
That could be because Sinn Fein members practice deliberate absenteeism, and do not ever take their seats or participate at Westminster. There’s also the complication that Sinn Fein is primarily an Irish political party, a party of government in a “foreign” country, which would make for a rather unique situation for them to be in a debate ostensibly between potential British Prime Ministers. Also, if you’re going to include Sinn Fein, then you have to include all the other N.I. parties, which (with the exception of the DUP, affiliated with the Conservatives) are all separate and unique from the parties in the rest of Britain. Whereas in Wales and Scotland, it’s just one major regionalist party vs. the other national parties. I don’t see how you could have a debate where half the parties are Northern Ireland-only, the more logical solution would be to let the N.I. parties have their own N.I. debate. Though honestly, that would probable make more sense for Scotland and Wales, too: let their party leaders debate a Scottish/Welsh MP or party leader from the national parties in separate Welsh/Scottish debates, similar to the debates preceding the Scottish referendum.
All the same, SF are protesting their exclusion according to this article. I agree including Plaid Cymru makes it a lot harder to justify excluding them.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-30949900
Gee, I sure wish there was an edit feature so one could correct all the misspellings!
Sinn Fein was excluded although they won more seats in the last election that did Plaid Cymru. I wonder how they justify that? They are a regional party like SNP and Plaid Cymtu. The same could be said for other parties of Ulster.