"Individual party members have little or no power within the main UK political parties.” Assess the accuracy of this view (25 marks).
The amount of power lying with individual party members varies between the two main UK political parties whilst the distribution alters when concerning different matters, for example voting for a leader and having an input in policy making. The Conservative party members have complete power when electing their leaders (aside from the fact they cannot elect the two candidates) whilst all branches of the Labour party are able to vote for their leader. When it comes to policy making in the Conservative party it is the leader who makes policy, in the sense that they have the final say on policy and the contents of the manifesto. In the Labour party there is a wider distribution of power in policy making as the MPs have relatively little power and all the branches play a part instead.
Conservative party members did not have a say in the election of the leader until William Hague reformed the procedure in 1998 due to the small number of MPs the party acquired in the 1997 general election. In a contest with only two candidates, there is a ballot of all party members, however, if there is a contest of more than two there is a series of ‘primary elections’ but only with the Conservative MPs to find out which two candidates to put before the party members for election before a one member, one vote (OMOV) of party members then occurs. In this sense, the electing of the leader by ordinary members is not as democratic as it appears although they still get a say between two candidates. Conversely, MPs only have the power to rid of the leader after a vote of no-confidence although the Conservative party members have voted them in the first place. The democratic approach to the voting can be therefore negated as the leader is clearly the person the party members wanted and saw as competent to lead. This was seen in 2003 when 25 letters were written by Conservative MPs to the Chairman of the 1922 Committee and therefore signifying a lack of confidence in leader Iain Duncan Smith who had to stand down as a result. A relatively small percentage of MPs were responsible for this happening although many members of the party could have been equally content with Smith. On the other hand, Labour’s election procedures differs to the Conservatives as the trade unions, PLP and CLP all vote in an electoral college with a third of the vote each giving each branch of the party a say in voting. This gives ordinary members a vote in who becomes leader in addition to those who are part of a trade unions although this can give other parties power to vote as not all trade unionists are supporters of the Labour party. However, some people are eligible for two votes giving them extra power when electing a leader.
In the Conservative party, the leader is the formal policy maker although they only have the final say on the manifesto and not the contents itself as it would require more time and expertise for the leader to do so. The party conference is only an advisory body and existing policies are not argued. Conference instead acts as a rally for the party faithful whilst building up the morale for the party in the year ahead and so individual party members have no power at all. However, it could be argued conference is becoming more assertive, for example in 1993 council tax was introduced, replacing Community Charge which had briefly replaced the system of rates. This decision had been influenced at Conservative conference. However, the opposite can be said of the Labour party’s annual conference, their official sovereign policy-making body. For many years, conference was dominated by unions who had 90% and each union casted block votes whilst minority opinions remained ignored. However, it is only one of the influences of policy and the Labour leaders have often ignored conference, for example, between 1964 and 1970, Labour conference rejected Labour government policies ten times. In recent years, the Labour conference is becoming more like the Conservatives with its role being reduced as a policy-making body and instead is very like their rallying of the party faithful. Party members still have power but it is very little in comparison to what it used to be.
In 1997, William Hague gave party members a greater influence over policy and established the Policy Forum, allowing ordinary member to play a part in policy making by making proposals to conference. However, it is argued that ordinary members have as much power as conference did in 1867 as the role of the forum is only advisory and therefore there is no formal policy making role and it is simply to give the members credit for policies and make them feel more influential. On the other hand, recently the role of the forum is increasing as groups hold regular meetings and feedback of policies is briefed to the leader on a range of issues. Under David Cameron, a series of task forces have been created to devise policy on the issues and groups headed by senior politicians recommend the policy.

Conclusively, the Conservative party can be perceived as a hierarchical party and ultimately the power lies with the leader when it comes to policy-making as they have the final say in the policies and the manifesto. However, the policies and manifesto are still influenced by individual party members through the likes of the policy forum and task forces. The Labour party is seen as more democratic in the sense that there is a wider distribution of power with most lying with the extra parliamentary party, giving individual party members a bigger say and more policy-making power. However, the Conservative party became more democratic with the adoption of one member, one vote (OMOV), and allowing party members to vote for the leader. In recent years, in the Labour party more power has been focused in the hands of the leadership due to the change of the selection of the leader procedure from an MP ballot to the Electoral College which divides the vote amongst the branches the party giving the leader more authority and a bigger mandate to control policies and therefore reducing the power of the party members.