Nevertheless

Political process
All citizens aged 18 or older are eligible to vote in parliamentary and local elections. All other public posts are filled by appointment. Each member of the House of Commons represents one parliamentary constituency. Constituency populations historically have varied considerably, with those in Scotland and Wales being much smaller than those in England. This overrepresentation for Scotland and Wales dates from the 18th century and the 1940s, respectively; however, because of the wide array of powers vested in the Scottish Parliament, the disparity in constituency size between England and Scotland was eliminated at the May 2005 election, when Scotland’s seats in the House of Commons were reduced from 72 to 59. Constituencies in Northern Ireland are slightly smaller than those in England. As there are no residency requirements, many members of Parliament reside outside the constituency that they represent.
Registration of voters is compulsory and carried out annually. Candidates for election to Parliament or a local council are normally chosen by the local parties. There are no primary elections along U.S. lines, for example, nor would such a system be easy because the timing of general elections is unpredictable.
The House of Commons is elected for a maximum term of five years. Traditionally, at any time during those five years, the prime minister had the right to ask the monarch to dissolve Parliament and call a general election. However, the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 mandated a five-year period between elections and proscribed early elections except under special circumstances: (1) if a motion for an early general election is agreed upon either by at least two-thirds of the whole House of Commons or without division (that is, when a voice vote is sufficient to determine the will of the House of Commons) or (2) if a motion of no confidence is passed and no alternative government is confirmed by the House of Commons within 14 days. Parliamentary candidates’ campaign spending is strictly limited. Since 2000, national party expenditure, which was previously unrestricted, has been limited to a maximum of £20 million per party. In addition, each party is allocated free election broadcasts on the main television channels. Televised debates between the leaders of the principal parties (de facto candidates for prime minister) were a part of the campaign process for the first time in the 2010 general election. No paid political advertising is permitted on television or radio. These provisions and the uncertainty about the timing of an election produce campaigns that are, by international standards, unusually brief and relatively inexpensive.
A two-party system has existed in the United Kingdom since the late 17th century. Since the mid-1920s the dominant groupings have been the Conservative Party and the Labour Party. However, several smaller parties—e.g., the Liberal Democrats, the United Kingdom Independence Party, the Scottish National Party, Plaid Cymru (the Welsh Nationalist Party), and loyalist (unionist) and republican (nationalist) political parties in Northern Ireland—have gained representation in Parliament, especially since the 1970s. The two-party system is one of the outstanding features of British politics and generally has produced firm and decisive government. The practice of simple plurality voting in single-member constituencies (commonly referred to a “first past the post”) has tended to exaggerate the majority of the winning party and to diminish the representation and influence of third parties, except for those with a geographic base of support (e.g., Plaid Cymru). When the 2010 general election resulted in a “hung parliament” (no party with enough seats to form a majority government), the Liberal Democrats—who were courted as coalition partner by both the Conservatives (who captured the most seats) and Labour (which finished a distant second)—used as a bargaining chip the possibility of changing to a system of proportional representation that would benefit third parties.
The two-party system, together with uncertainty about the timing of a general election, has produced the British phenomenon of the official opposition. Its decisive characteristic is that the main opposition party forms an alternative, or “shadow,” government, ready at any time to take office, in recognition of which the leader of the opposition receives an official salary.
Despite several high-profile female monarchs and politicians, men have dominated politics in the United Kingdom for centuries. In 2011, however, centuries-old succession laws stipulating that the heir to the throne be the first-born son of the monarch and that sons take precedence over daughters in succession were slated for change to remove gender as a qualification. Nevertheless, while women have made strong political gains in much of western Europe, especially in Scandinavia, breakthroughs for women in British national elections have been rare. Throughout much of the 20th century, only a few women won elections; before the 1980s the high point for female representation in the House of Commons was 29 in 1964. Indeed, many women who were able to win election to the House of Commons were of aristocratic stock or widows of influential politicians. One such exception was Margaret Thatcher, who was first elected to Parliament in 1959 and became Britain’s first female prime minister in 1979. However, during the 1980s women began to make gains, with 60 female candidates winning seats in Parliament in 1992. In order to increase its appeal to women and increase the number of women MPs, the Labour Party adopted a policy of all-women shortlists for half of its “target seats” (i.e., seats where an existing Labour MP was standing down or where Conservative MPs had small majorities) for the 1997 election, and, though the policy subsequently was ruled in violation of equal rights laws, 120 women—101 from the Labour Party—were elected to the House of Commons. Even with the law invalidated, 118 women won election in 2001. In addition to women, minorities have had some success in national elections. There consistently have been several Jewish members of the House of Commons, and Sikh and Muslim candidates also have had limited success.