Across the world, outsiders are challenging the political status quo: Ukip in Britain, Marine Le Pen’s Front National in France, Donald Trump in America. So does this mean that voters are finally dumping the established parties which for decades have simply swapped power between themselves?
On 13 July 2016, The Spectator held a discussion at the IET in London on the future of party politics. On the panel were The Spectator’s political editor James Forsyth, journalist and author Sir Simon Jenkins, Ipsos MORI CEO Ben Page and Professor Colleen Graffy, who was US deputy assistant secretary of state in the George W. Bush administration. The question they addressed was: Is party politics broken?
Andrew Neil said: ‘Everywhere you look, the parties that most of you have grown up with, the parties that created the post-war settlement, have either lost, or are on the defensive, or are already in the retreat. Is that simply a result of British exceptionalism… or is it the start of a pan-European uprising?’
James Forsyth said party politics IS broken, as plainly illustrated by the momentous recent changes in Britain.
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