Arthuristan political parties

Arthuristan politics

Arthurista is a parliamentary democracy. While the Lord Protector is the nominal head of state, real executive power lies with the Prime Minister, i.e. the leader of the majority in Parliament, and his/her cabinet. The unicameral Arthuristan Parliament is elected to five year terms via a variant of the First Past the Post system.

Arthuristan politics places significant importance on consensual decision-making rather than bipartisanship, a legacy of the inclusive, cross-class parliament of feudal times. As a result, coalition governments are the norm, representing broad spectrums of the society, with a focus on compromise and finding concrete solutions to problems rather than political grandstanding. In general, governments are formed in alternation by the two large centrist parties, Labour and the Liberals, often in coalition with other moderate minor parties, freezing out the radical "lunatic fringe", who are widely distrusted by the population.

Major parties

A consensus between both of the major Arthuristan parliamentary parties is that unlike the 'values-based' social policies espoused by Emmerian or Belhavian political parties, they sees social concerns which do not have root causes or ultimate consequences which may be economically quantifiable to be matters properly belonging to the private sphere and not the concern of governments, whose purpose is to produce and implement 'targeted solutions emerging from a judicious study of discernable reality' to real, measurable problems. 'Culture wars' abroad are seen as irrational and their battleground issues are completely ignored.

Arthuristan Labour Party

Founded in 1876 by Sir Richard Maynard, the Labour Party has been the most successful political group in recent history, forming all but four governments in the past 50 years, although sometimes they had to resort to coalitions with smaller moderate parties in order to do so.

Economically, the ALP is vaguely centre-left, and sees no conflict between a market-driven economy and a robust welfare state, which it considers to be a vital enabler of future growth by creating a well-educated workforce with high standards of living. It is currently largely a Third-Wayist or radical centrist party that borrows liberally from both the centre-left and right to create pragmatic solutions.

National Liberal Party

The National Liberal Party is a centre-right, classical liberal and moderately neoliberal group. It became the dominant opposition party in the mid-late 1800s in the wake of the decline of the Conservative Party (the Tories) into irrelevance. It believes that the free market offers the most efficient economic model, while the welfare state ought to be streamlined, made more efficient and "rolled back" where necessary. Its positions on social issues are broadly libertarian, although like Labour it espouses a robustly assimilationist immigration policy. It is usually the second largest party in parliament, with its chairman known as the "leader of the opposition". It has won three general elections in the past-50 years, most notably in the mid-1980s when, in an unprecedented move, it governed in coalition with Labour, its usual main rival, in order that together they may stave off the Freedom Party. It has close ties with its ideologically-similar counterparts in The West (Unionist Party), Emmeria (Federalist Party), and Belhavia (Conservative Party).

Minor Parties

Some of these are politically moderate and often rule in coalition with one of the major parties. Others are shunned by voters as belonging to the "lunatic fringe", given the general distrust of political radicalism and ideological grandstanding among Arthuristans, as opposed to practical problem-solving and compromise.

The Freedom Party

This group supports Hayekian laissez faire capitalism and social libertarianism. It gained significant strength in the 1980s, forcing an unprecedented coalition between Labour and the Liberals to freeze them out of government, and lost a significant measure of credibility following the successful moderate liberalisation of the Arthuristan economy by the coalition of former rivals. It was rumoured to have received covert support from Western, Belhavian, and/or Emmerian intelligence during the 1980s.

The Arthuristan Citizenist Party

A relatively small grouping located to the left of the Labour Party, it has an ambiguous relationship with the Citizenist Party of the West. Its support base lie mainly among students and the young urban middle class below 30.

The Rural Alliance

Founded to represent the interests of the indigenous tribal residents of the island's interior. Due to the constitution's prohibition of political parties founded on the basis of ethnicity or religion, it has become the de facto representative of Highlanders vis a vis the descendents of the post-1000 settlers which form the majority of the population. Often governs in coalition with Labour.

The Green Party

Founded in 1993. A centre-left party with a focus on ecological conservation. It often governs in coalition with Labour, although it also once threatened to split from one such joint government over off-shore oil and gas drilling.

The Traditionalist Coalition

The Traditionalist Coalition, once known as the Conservative Party or the 'Tories', was traditionally one of two largest political parties in Arthurista. As its support base, the traditional rural elite, diminished in importance over the late-19th and early-20th century, so did their hold over the political establishment. The rise of the Arthuristan Labour Party in the early-20th century pushed them over the edge into irrelevance. It is mostly constituted by devout followers of various monotheist religions. Its main policies, such as restricting sexual education in schools, allowing the teaching of "intelligent design", the prohibition of "Sunday trading" and the tightening of abortion laws, are widely mocked and ridiculed by the general public, left or right.

Communist Party

Nowadays a relatively moderate group espousing Left Communist or Democratic socialist policies.

Militant Workers' Party

A radical faction expelled from the Communist Party in the 1980s for 'entryism'.

Anarcho-Syndicalists

A political party in the loose sense of the word, it is a far left anarchist group with little support beyond university students.