3.2.2.4 Electoral and party systems

  • Westminster elections in the UK are majoritarian FPTP systems
    • So are elections for Congress

Two-party system in UK and US

  • Both parties cover wide range of views, internal coalitions

    • hard-left, Momentum (Labour Party, Corbyn)
    • one-nation Tories
    • MAGA Republicans

  • Trump and Sanders were outsiders but wrapped themselves in their respective parties’ banner

    • In the UK they would have started their own party

Comparison of policies in UK and US

  • Comparisons seem obvious but are more nuanced: Con and R on the right, D and Lab on the left

Similarities (Con and R)

  • Lower taxes for businesses and individuals

    • 2018 Trump cut income and corporate tax (35% -> 21%)
    • Bush broke his promise to “Watch my lips, no new taxes” was a major factor in his defeat in 1992
    • Thatcher reduced top rate income tax from 83% to 60% in 1980, then to 40% in 1989
    • Thatcherism and Reaganomics (Neoliberal Economics) both responses to 1970s crises
      • Tax cuts, free market liberalism, deregulation, reduced state spending, privatisation
    • Truss tried to cut income tax lower in mini-budget, called out by OBR

  • Strong armed forces

    • Trump’s first term: military budget went from over $600bn to around $700bn
    • Trump’s second term: push for NATO to spend 5% GDP
      • FY2026 set defence budget to $901bn, proposed $1.5tn for FY2027
      • In response Badenoch criticised Starmer’s pledges for defence
      • Called for 3% GDP by 2030, proposed reallocating £17bn to MoD from net zero and R&D budgets
    • Con strongly committed to the Trident program and the nuclear deterrent

  • Strong nation state

    • Trump won on an “America First” platform and pushed for better trade deals, through use of tarrifs etc
    • Thatcherite nationalism, a newer shift as opposed to one-nation conservatism (Major, Cameron)
    • Euroscepticism from Con
    • Wariness of international bodies

  • Individual freedoms

    The nine most terrifying words in the English language are “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”

    – Ronald Reagan

    • Thatcher’s promise to “roll back the frontiers of the state”
    • Decry the “nanny state”
    • Cutting welfare
      • Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill cut Medicaid by nearly $1tn over a decade
      • DOGE cut spending by federal workforce
      • Trump froze USAID spending on his first day in office
        • Foreign aid cuts could result in 14 million preventable deaths by 2030
      • Con 2024 manifesto promised cutting welfare by £12bn per year
      • Badenoch pledged to reinstate the two-child benefit cap
        • “an endlessly rising welfare bill paid for by a shrinking defence budget”

  • Abandoned fiscal prudence in crises

    • Trump and Johnson both increased gov spending with fiscal stimuli

Similarities (Lab and D)

  • Reducing economic gap
    • 2024 Lab manifesto pledged to crack down on tax loophole, e.g. non-doms
      • Pledged not to increase basic rate income tax or VAT
    • 2024 Dem platform: “A fair tax code is how we invest in the things that make our natino strong”
  • Better public services
    • Tony Blair: “education, education, education”
      • Greatly inreased NHS spending as well
    • Biden: price reductions of 10 common prescription drugs for Medicare
  • International cooperation
    • Mostly pro-EU, Starmer discussing closer ties to the EU
      • e.g. entered talks in May 2026 about joining EU’s €90bn loan to Ukraine
    • Biden had a multilateral approach to foreign policy
      • Ukraine with military and humanitarian aid
      • Commitment to NATO
      • Rejoined international climate change agreements
  • Multicultralism
    • Inclusivity and tolerance
    • Both parties draw from minority ethnic voter bases
    • Dem pushed for civil rights reform in 1960s
    • Lab passed Race Relations Act 1965

Differences (Con and R)

  • R is considerably more conservative on social issues
    • e.g. same-sex marriage brought by Cameron but many Republicans oppose it
  • Religion in politics
  • Gun rights, Second Amendment in the US
    • issue rarely comes up in the UK
  • Militant libertarian and anti-government factions in R, e.g. Proud Boys
    • absent from most Con
    • closest parallel is EDL under Tommy Robinson, slightly associated with Reform

Differences (Lab and D)

  • Healthcare
    • Many D oppose “socialist” healthcare plans advocated by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren et al
      • They promoted “Medicare for All” in the 2019 primaries
    • Many D remain suspicious of single dominant state-provided healthcare system
    • Both Lab and Con are protective about the NHS
      • Battleground mainly fought around funding and role of private providers

Differences in ideology

  • UK traditionally more idelogical and influenced by political thinkers
  • Lab influenced by socialist thinkers such as Webbs, Marx, Engels
    • Clause IV (common ownership)
  • Con less of formal ideology, but embraced ideas of Burke and Disraeli’s one-nation Toryism
    • Less so with Badenoch, who is much more Thatcherite
  • Con: Classical liberalism and laissez-faire economics
  • US: party labels are meaningless – big tent in nature and no specific ideological leanings
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