Minority report

Small political parties could have a big impact on the future of higher education after the general election, writes Harry Quilter-Pinner.

The May 2015 election is one of the most uncertain on record. The breakdown of the two-party system, signified by a 36 percentage point fall in the proportion of people voting for the two largest parties since the 1950s, has historically been hidden by Britain’s first-past-the-post electoral system. But, with the 2010 election failing to deliver a majority for the first time since 1974 and resulting in the first coalition since 1945, all this changed. The UK has a multi-party system now, something the 2015 election is likely to confirm as trend rather than exception. Indeed, with the Liberal Democrats predicted to lose seats, it is possible—maybe even likely—that the country will end up with a minority government reliant on smaller parties on a vote-by-vote basis or a multi-party rather than two-party coalition.

If this were to occur, it would probably take one of two forms: a progressive Labour-led coalition, with the Scottish National Party, the Greens and Plaid Cymru; or a Conservative-led coalition backed up by UKIP, with the Liberal Democrats and the Unionist parties in the fulcrum position. Either would see the larger parties reliant on the support of minority parties to deliver on their pre-election policy pledges. So the policy stance of these smaller parties on all issues, including higher education, matters more than ever before.