The Nobel prize winning economist Elinor Ostrom (2000, p. 33) once warned against ‘the danger of self-evident truths’ and suggested that ‘the fact that something is widely

believed does not make it correct’. The role of the social and political scientist was, for Ostrom, not simply to examine and explore a specific topic, event or [...]

Unlike the situation in 2017, the calling of the 2019 general election did not take the country by surprise. Boris Johnson had succeeded Theresa May as Prime Minister in July

and formed a government avowedly committed to exiting the European Union (EU) as soon as possible. [...]

The year 2019 was supposed to be the year of the Liberal Democrats’ rehabilitation. They had apparently emerged from the long, dark shadows cast by their coalition with the

Conservatives, and their electoral trouncing in 2015 and poor showing in 2017. They had enjoyed a period of stability, and remarkable progress, under the leadership [...]

When all is said and done, what might be the most surprising thing about the Conservative Party’s victory in 2019 was how unsurprising it was. As the UK voted on 12 December,

almost every poll had the Tories ahead by at least six percentage points (BBC, 2019). [...]

From Twitter to the BBC, media platforms were perceived as having had ‘a bad election’. The story of the 2019 media campaign focussed primarily on the negative. There were

continual claims of misinformation and deliberate disinformation spread via social media and amplified by the so-called mainstream news. [...]

Northern Ireland’s election had dramatic outcomes and important consequences for the restoration of devolved power-sharing. For the first time, Unionist MPs elected to Westminster

were in the minority. Nine nationalists won seats, seven taken by Sinn Féin (SF) who refused to take up their positions in the House of Commons, with the Social [...]

This contribution considers how niche parties react when they lose their niche, using the cases of three parties in the turbulent period prior to the 2019 UK general election:

the Brexit Party, the Green Party and Change UK. I overview the background of these parties before showing that each lost its respective policy niches to larger, [...]

With only two and half years since the previous election, there might have been a temptation to think little would change in terms of party finance. Certainly, there were no

major reviews or legislative change. But, the fallout from the 2015 election continued and was finally resolved in court, with the ruling affecting party behaviour [...]

It was clear from the outcome of the 2017 general election that the subsequent parliamentary term would be unusual. Theresa May had gone to the polls hoping for a clear mandate

but instead found herself as a minority Prime Minister, relying on the support of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to pass key pieces of legislation. [...]