Parliamentary System in Your Country

[rebornfree]

I'm in the UK where we have several political parties, the one with most votes forming a Government (currently the Labour Party) and the rest in opposition. The leader of the largest opposition party (currently Conservative) is the main spokesperson for the opposition and forms a Shadow Cabinet.

Although many issues are debated on party lines, moral issues, such as abortion, gay rights and assisted dying are not on party political lines. Our MPs have free votes. I think this prevents too much of a left/right divide and is a great blessing. I'm curious to know if this is the same in other Western democracies so would love to hear from those in other countries. Comments from fellow Brits are welcome too, of course! Thank you in advance for any replies.

 

[Stopped_lurking]

I'm in the UK where we have several political parties, the one with most votes forming a Government (currently the Labour Party) and the rest in opposition. The leader of the largest opposition party (currently Conservative) is the main spokesperson for the opposition and forms a Shadow Cabinet.

Although many issues are debated on party lines, moral issues, such as abortion, gay rights and assisted dying are not on party political lines. Our MPs have free votes. I think this prevents too much of a left/right divide and is a great blessing. I'm curious to know if this is the same in other Western democracies so would love to hear from those in other countries. Comments from fellow Brits are welcome too, of course! Thank you in advance for any replies.

Having the ability to choose from more than 2 parties really changes the game. Here's a plot of the swedish parties on a 2D plot, with economic policy (vänster - left and höger - right) on the horizontal axis and the GAL-TAN (Green Alternative Libertarian - Traditional Authoritarian Nationalist) values on the vertical axis.

So in Sweden, yes I would say that there are some moral issues in party politics. However, it is most often possible to find a party that is a good fit. I have marked in red the previous government (left-aligned), and in blue the present minority government (they govern with the support of SD, right-aligned). As you can see, the only political space not occcupied are the traditionalist, hardcore leftists.

NB! the GAL-TAN scale is not without its detractors, I'm just using it as a proxy for the cultural dimension. Also this is Sweden, you'll find plenty of people in M (Moderaterna) that are pretty progressive on a global scale.

 

[Larniavc]

I'm in the UK where we have several political parties, the one with most votes forming a Government (currently the Labour Party) and the rest in opposition. The leader of the largest opposition party (currently Conservative) is the main spokesperson for the opposition and forms a Shadow Cabinet.

Although many issues are debated on party lines, moral issues, such as abortion, gay rights and assisted dying are not on party political lines. Our MPs have free votes. I think this prevents too much of a left/right divide and is a great blessing. I'm curious to know if this is the same in other Western democracies so would love to hear from those in other countries. Comments from fellow Brits are welcome too, of course! Thank you in advance for any replies.

Fellow Brit here. Can confirm that moral issues seem far less under the Whip than it seems to be in America.

 

[rebornfree]

Thank you both. I have to log out now but will reply later.

 

[Seraphim .]

I'm from England but live in the USA.

You have to remember as well the coalition years, when Cameron and Clegg were in power. A lot now speculate the next govt will be some kind of Reform-Con coalition or pact based coalition (think of the DUP-Con pact in the recent past around 2017ish under May).

I think there are likely to be more coalitions in the next few years.

 

[Larniavc]

I'm from England but live in the USA.

You have to remember as well the coalition years, when Cameron and Clegg were in power. A lot now speculate the next govt will be some kind of Reform-Con coalition or pact based coalition (think of the DUP-Con pact in the recent past around 2017ish under May).

I think there are likely to be more coalitions in the next few years.

The best outcome I could hope for would be a Lib-Lab coalition.

 

[Stopped_lurking]

Having the ability to choose from more than 2 parties really changes the game. Here's a plot of the swedish parties on a 2D plot, with economic policy (vänster - left and höger - right) on the horizontal axis and the GAL-TAN (Green Alternative Libertarian - Traditional Authoritarian Nationalist) values on the vertical axis.

So in Sweden, yes I would say that there are some moral issues in party politics. However, it is most often possible to find a party that is a good fit. I have marked in red the previous government (left-aligned), and in blue the present minority government (they govern with the support of SD, right-aligned). As you can see, the only political space not occcupied are the traditionalist, hardcore leftists.

NB! the GAL-TAN scale is not without its detractors, I'm just using it as a proxy for the cultural dimension. Also this is Sweden, you'll find plenty of people in M (Moderaterna) that are pretty progressive on a global scale.

I'll try to expound a little on the moral issue, most moral issues play a small part in the political discussion in Sweden apart for two, Law and order and Immigration.

Source: https://novus.se/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/novusviktigastefraganaugusti2025.pdf

Table. The 10 most important issues according to voters, augusti 2025. Respondents could choose as many issues as they wanted, so the percentages should be read as "63% of voters think healthcare is ONE OF THE MOST important political issues".
2025 augusti		2025 augusti
Pos.	Fråga/Issue	%	English translation	Moral issue?
1	Sjukvården	63%	Healthcare
2	Lag och ordning	49%	Law and order	Y
3	Skola och utbildning	49%	Schools and education
4	Invandring/integration	43%	Immigration/integration	Y
5	Äldreomsorg	35%	Care of the elderly
6	Landets ekonomi	34%	National economy
7	Klimatet	34%	Climate	Y?
8	Sysselsättning/arbetslösheten/jobben	33%	Employment/unemployment/the jobs
9	Försvaret	32%	Defense
10	Miljön	28%	Environment	Y?

However, even if the voters find those questions important the parties are close enough in regards to Law and order that it is not a election winner. The hard on immigration question is almost completely cornered by the SD party (Sverigedemokraterna, Sweden Democrats). Both observations are my own conclusions, and I'm not an unbiased observer.

In the PDF there are also the complete table (Tabell 3, in total 28 issues) moral associated questions (my opinion): Social security is in position 14, Equality in 17, Redistribution politics in 21, Family politics in 23 and Animal rights in 25.

Interestingly, last is Integrity issues in 28th position. We are a obviously a very trusting people

It's actually kind of hard to define what is an moral issue for some of these categories.

Sorry for the bad formatting.

 

[Maria Billingsley]

I'm in the UK where we have several political parties, the one with most votes forming a Government (currently the Labour Party) and the rest in opposition. The leader of the largest opposition party (currently Conservative) is the main spokesperson for the opposition and forms a Shadow Cabinet.

Although many issues are debated on party lines, moral issues, such as abortion, gay rights and assisted dying are not on party political lines. Our MPs have free votes. I think this prevents too much of a left/right divide and is a great blessing. I'm curious to know if this is the same in other Western democracies so would love to hear from those in other countries. Comments from fellow Brits are welcome too, of course! Thank you in advance for any replies.

Well here in the USA the current administration is using some Christians and their unwavering commitment to Christian Nationalism, its Seven Mountain Mandate along with Project 2025 by the Heritage Foundation, to reshape our Democracy into an Authoritarian Theocracy. This forces a deep divide by poisoning the harvest and deceiving, even the Elect.

I believe some will understand what I am talking about.

Blessings

 

[Seraphim .]

The best outcome I could hope for would be a Lib-Lab coalition.

While things can shift at the drop of a hat, electoral calculus shows that even if you combined all predicted Lab and LD seats, they would still yield a smaller no than predicted Reform UK seats alone.

General Election Prediction

LAB	34.7%	412	21.2%	45	119	264
LIB	12.6%	72	13.6%	28	64	94

..

Reform

14.7%

5

30.3%

179

368

454

I honestly never thought there'd be a time when the Conservatives were predicted to win just 36 seats.

 

[Larniavc]

While things can shift at the drop of a hat, electoral calculus shows that even if you combined all predicted Lab and LD seats, they would still yield a smaller no than predicted Reform UK seats alone.

General Election Prediction

LAB	34.7%	412	21.2%	45	119	264
LIB	12.6%	72	13.6%	28	64	94

..

Reform

14.7%

5

30.3%

179

368

454

I honestly never thought there'd be a time when the Conservatives were predicted to win just 36 seats.

I dunno how you can predict a general election from here.

 

[Seraphim .]

If a snap election were to be called now, those are the predicted results.