In Great Britain, the law states that, because we are a democracy, the electorate should consist of all British citizens over the age of 18, other than immigrants, criminals and the insane. Other than the aforementioned, parties, Britain has Universal Suffrage and is a democracy, meaning that everyone has a right to vote and freedom of speech. To win a General Election, a party must win more seats in the House of Commons than any other rival party. To win seats in parliament, you must receive the majority of votes in a constituency (voting area). Constituencies receive seats according to their size. Each constituency has a representative of each political party. Thus, the electoral system in Great Britain is a “First Past The Post” system, where the number of seats a party wins is not directly proportional to the number of votes that they have won but to the number of constituencies that they have won. The main political parties with a high chance of being elected are Labour and Conservatives. Traditionally, Conservatives believe in keeping things as they are and tend to represent owners of businesses, the aristocracy and the upper/middle clas

Although ethnic minorities only comprise quite a small percentage of the electorate, they too have contributed to Labour’s successful election. The large majority of Black and Asian voters voted for Labour, with 76% of Afro-Caribbean voters and 69% of Asian voters voting for Labour in 2001. This contributed towards Labour’s victory, even though they did lose some support from Afro-Caribbean voters since 1997.

Another factor, which would have contributed towards Labour’s successful election, was the low turnout of voters on June 7th In fact; the election of 2001 produced the lowest turnout figure since 1918, with only 59% of the electorate turning up to vote. This meant that, whilst 42% of those who actually did vote, voted for Labour, 41% of the entire electorate did not vote at all. This meant that there were more people who did not vote than those who voted for Labour. The turnout was lowest among young people, with 79% of over 64-year-olds voting and only 38% of 18-24-year-olds voting. Although this statistic indicates that we are becoming more apathetic towards voting as to who runs our country, a study by the Hansard Society argued differently. They found that particularly young non-voters felt alienated from the political system because they were so ill informed.

In previous elections, there has been a distinct gender gap in terms of voting behaviour between men and women. Traditionally, women were more likely to vote for the Conservatives, with men more inclined towards voting for Labour. However, these trends disappeared in 1997 and have not re-emerged in 2001. This means that women are now more likely to vote for Labour, thus increasing Labour’s overall popularity. This factor could also have been a contributing factor towards Labour’s victory.

ses. Labour traditionally represents the working class and supports trade unions etc. However, recently, Labour has split, with “Old Labour” staying close to its roots of working class representation, whilst “New Labour” has moved more towards the centre of the political spectrum. This means that, whilst “Old Labour” has ostracized owners of businesses and the middle classes by their policies on taxation and trade unions, “New Labour” now have an increased appeal to the rapidly growing middle classes. This means that Labour has become a “catch-all” party, which attracts a very wide cross-section of the electorate.

However, it has been argued that these traditional influences are not as important anymore. There are also some more recent issues, which affect voting behaviour, which political scientists like to take into account such as the media, policy preference and campaigns.

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