The first-past-the-post electoral system makes it difficult for minority parties to be in power. However, several still exist.

UKIP

UKIP, the United Kingdom Independence Party, was established in 1993 in order to withdraw the UK from the European Union. UKIP is further to the right compared with the Conservative Party. It is an anti-Europe, anti-immigration party, in favour of British sovereignty. The party supports a reform of the electoral system to shift to Proportional Representation, which would allow it to get more traction. UKIP was first ridiculed in its early days, but gained gradually more seats, as the 2014 election showed, when they gained 24 seats at the European Parliament and one seat at Westminster. The typical UKIP voter is a middle-aged, working class male with low educational attainment who is disillusioned with the traditional parties.

Nationalist parties

From another perspective, nationalist parties exist in Scotland, Wales :

  • The Scottish National Party was founded in 1934.
  • Plaid Cymru is the Welsh Nationalist party, formed in 1925.

These parties are left-wing and promote the constitutional, economic and cultural advancement of Wales and Scotland. Both parties actively campaigned for a degree of independence from Westminster in calling for a devolution of powers. They earned it in 1999 when a Scottish Parliament and a Welsh Assembly were created to hold certain powers. These parties also win seats at Westminster.

In Northern Ireland, there are five major political parties, divided along religious lines (Protestant or Catholic).

  • The Ulster Unionist Party (Protestant) advocates the maintenance of the union with the UK
  • The Catholic Social Democratic and Labour Party want to unite Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland peacefully.
  • The more radical parties are the Protestant Democratic Unionist Party and the Catholic Sinn Fein ("We Ourselves" in Gaelic), a nationalist republican political party, founded in 1905, the oldest in Northern Ireland.

Small parties

There are also very small parties in the UK that very rarely get seats at Westminster. The far-right party called the British National Party was created in 1982 and is xenophobic and vehemently anti-immigration. They never got seats in neither Westminster nor the European Parliament.

The Green Party was founded in 1990 and is rather left-wing. They got an MP seat in 2010. The Green Party also has one peer in the House of Lords.