Dr Hannah White (SE 1993), Chief Executive of the Institute for Government and author of Held in Contempt: What’s Wrong with the House of Commons? argues here that the question has become more pressing.

When I began working in Parliament in the early 2000s, the place operated according to a binary logic. The House of Commons was built around the assumption of two dominant political parties. The first-past-the-post electoral system was expected to deliver a strong majority government, able to control the agenda and deliver a coherent programme of manifesto promises. It was an oppositional, winner-takesall system that suited most MPs well enough — until it didn’t. 

The assumption that the UK is a two-party state has been flawed for some time, given the sizeable presence of third parties, the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish National Party. But watching Parliament over the last decade I have seen the underpinning logic of our Parliament shattered more thoroughly. 

Brexit loyalties cut across parties, fracturing the previous norm of alignment between party and policy agenda. MPs got used to organising to defeat their leaders. The successful model of the European Research Group on the Conservative backbenches having since been emulated repeatedly and on Labour’s side too. An existing trend of MPs’ increasing willingness to rebel against their party whip was accelerated. As Johnson and now Starmer have discovered, even a large majority no longer guarantees getting political priorities through parliament. 

Time pressure has also reduced the quality of laws passed. The need for speed, first from the Article 50 deadline and then from the pandemic, normalised accelerated law-making and lower standards of scrutiny. This has contributed to more u-turns and worse policy, when ministers fail to lay the groundwork for difficult choices before pushing them through. The pandemic also ratcheted up public expectations of what government can deliver and how quickly, making politicians’ jobs harder once crises have passed. 

Compounding all of this, a huge turnover of MPs — 335 of 650 elected in 2024 were new — has meant a massive loss of institutional memory about previous parliamentary norms. A trend towards MPs being more focused on their constituencies means they are less inclined to spend time on the important but largely invisible work of being legislators. 

All this has made it harder for governments to get things done, exacerbating voter dissatisfaction, sharpened by a context in which people expect quick results. And meanwhile all political parties have together succeeded in persuading the public that “Britain is broken”. Voters want answers, and fast. We now face a situation our constitutional machinery was not built to handle. 

The first-past-the-post system combined with our increasingly plural party landscape will produce more seats that are three- or fourway marginals, in which voters will have to guess how to game the system rather than vote positively for the candidate they want. Disproportionate vote and seat shares are likely to bring the system into disrepute.

There is the real possibility of the next election delivering a Westminster parliament in which five parties each gain 15 to 25 per cent of the vote. But Parliament and wider constitutional processes are not prepared for the formation, running and scrutiny of government in such a context. After the UK’s 2010 to 2015 experience, coalitions seem less likely — they are bad for the junior partner.

Minority government is more likely, but Westminster is ill-equipped for it: without fixedterm parliaments, opposition parties can vote no confidence in the government at any time. Westminster confers disproportionate benefits on the official opposition in terms of money, roles and control of parliamentary time, which works tolerably when there is one dominant opposition but would embed unfairness if there were four of roughly equal size.

Constitutional change in the UK tends to happen incrementally or in sudden shifts, the latter usually in response to a crisis, such as the Parliament Acts and MPs’ expenses. What we are not good at is spotting trends and preparing for where they are taking us. Governing parties are terrible at contemplating a future in which they do not hold power. 

The fracturing of two-party politics is not a short-term fluctuation. Parties always want to believe that they can win and govern with a large majority, but even a majority is no longer enough. We urgently need a period of proactive constitutional evolution before the dissonance between electoral outcomes and institutional practices forces a crisis rather than a considered choice.

Dr White was part of a college event, titled 'Rewiring democracy: Dr Hannah White in conversation with Suzanne Raine'. Click to watch the full video on the college YouTube channel.