Minor Parties: what’s the tea?
2024/2025 has seen a huge rise in conversations about the role of minor parties in UK politics. The electorate is frustrated with the traditional parties and an endless wait for change, many of us feel like we’ve lived through 5 years of ‘u-turns’ and reside in a country that just seems to get ever more expensive!
Enter, the minor party.
The Edexcel definition of a minor party isn’t specific but implies that it refers to any party that has ‘limited electoral success in parliament.’ The two minor parties that everyone’s talking about this year are Reform UK and the Green Party. Read on for what you need to know.
Reform UK: the rise of the right?
Reform UK were barely on the scene 6 weeks before the 2024 election. Headed by Nigel Farage, who has notoriously been part of UKIP, the Brexit Party, and now Reform, it seems like he has been repackaging many of the same populist policies under a new brand name each time. Reform UK gained 5 MP’s in the 2024 election – Farage was one of them, securing the Clacton Upon Sea seat, and Richard Tice, multi-millionaire and previous Conservative Party member is a second. Lee Anderson and Danny Kruger were previously Conservative MPs and Sarah Poncin is the fifth, who was elected in the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in 2025.
Reforms policies centre around immigration, tax reforms and incentivising big business. They frame themselves as supporters of the working classes in the UK and propose policies such as raising the threshold for income tax to £20,000, from its current £12,500. They are also fiercely isolationist, which is shown by one of their key suggestions to break with the ECHR, which is an international body that upholds the protection of human rights worldwide. (For context on how dangerous this idea is, there are only 2 countries that are not part of the ECHR – Belarus and Russia, who was expelled in 2022 for invading Ukraine.)
Reform have been very divisive in the UK over the past year. Farage has aligned himself closely with key figures on the US political right and expanded party membership to over 300,000. YouGov conducted a poll in September 2025 which suggested that if current trends continue, Reform could be on course to be the largest party in the UK by 2029. Whilst it is currently unlikely that they could win enough seats to win the election outright, they could certainly become the largest party in a coalition government, if the current levels of support and media coverage continue until the next election.
The Green Party: new leader, new lease of life?
The media have appeared less fascinated with the Green Party, despite them having a similar number of MPs in parliament. Former leader, Carla Denyer, holds one seat, with Sian Berry, Ellie Chowns and Adrian Ramsay holding the other three. The 2024 election saw the Green Party gain an extra 3 MP’s, expanding from their Brighton stronghold which Caroline Lucas held for 10 years. A 2025 leadership election has very much changed the narrative around the Green Party and thrust them into the spotlight. Zack Polanski was elected leader in September this year. The effects of this were notable: 20,000 new members reportedly signed up in the month after Polanski’s win and 3 Labour MPs defected to the Greens. Polanski has claimed he will rebrand the Greens by ‘picking fights’ – highlighting issues around the occupation of Palestine and advocating for taxation of the ‘super rich’ and ‘eco-populism.’ He is seen as a real contender to Starmer in the next election if support continues to grow.
Your Party: a viable contender from the former Labour Left?
The newest minor party, which is not yet named but referred to as Your Party, until its members choose a permanent name for it in its first conference, is headed up by 4 former left leaning Labour MPs. The most notable, Jeremy Corbyn, MP for Islington North, former Labour leader and member of the Labour Party for over 20 years, had the whip removed by Keir Starmer and ran as an independent in 2024. Corbyn, along with Zarah Sultana, is advocating for nationalisation of key utilities, redistribution of wealth and an end to austerity and inequality – what many would argue are key socialist principles. Unfortunately, Your Party has been shown to have some public disputes which has affected confidence in their ability to govern. This was first seen in organising membership, where the two leaders publicly disagreed following contrasting emails to interested members, and most recently over the processing of donations. Many who originally considered supporting Your Party have turned to the Greens as a more stable alternative.
Are the Lib Dems a minor party?
Many students question whether the Liberal Democrats are considered to be a minor party. I would suggest not for the following reasons. Firstly, the liberal ideology is considered to be the founding principle of all major world democracies, therefore it would be hard to argue that a party which was founded upon these principles would be minor. Additionally, the Lib Dems have historically been a fierce competitor in the House of Commons, often serving as the governing party pre-World War Two. As post-war Britain has developed, there has been more of a focus between Labour and the Conservatives, with the Lib Dems sitting comfortably in the centre ground. For many, the Lib Dems represent a safe choice – those who want to vote tactically within their constituency will more often than not vote for the Lib Dems, to ensure that their vote is not ‘wasted.’ The impact of the coalition government took a toll on their numbers in parliament after 2015, however 10 years later, with 72 MPs in parliament, it would be more fitting to consider them a major party, than a minor one.
I was first eligible to vote in 2010, and I don’t recall a period of time where there was quite so much noise and interest around minor parties. I can’t imagine that the examiners won’t have picked up on this, so I’d recommend you watch the developments closely!
CGA x
