How UK elections differ from US elections | Wilnesh News

By the time America holds a presidential election, voters have endured months of seemingly endless campaigning—the entire campaign process from candidates and campaigns to the actual presidential election and inauguration can take up to two years.

In the UK, the time between the prime minister’s call for a general election and the actual vote is just six weeks. American readers might quite reasonably read this and cry.

With time to win the support of voters so tight, leaders of various British political parties traveled around the UK in campaign “chariots”, trying to visit as many constituencies as possible to persuade voters to elect local party candidates as the new party leaders. MP).

The party that wins the most seats in the House of Commons (the British parliament) usually forms the new government, and its leader becomes Prime Minister. This sounds simple, and it usually is, unless there is a “hung parliament” where no party wins a majority. In this case, the largest party can form a minority government or a coalition government of two or more parties.

Bobby Duffy, director of the Policy Institute at King’s College London, told CNBC that there are many historical and structural differences between the two countries when it comes to politics, which is why the U.S. campaign is taking so long.

“The size of U.S. elections is, in part, a result of a lot of money at work. You really have to do long-term fundraising alongside a campaign, and we have completely different rules and structures for that.”

Money is undoubtedly one of the biggest differences between the British election and the US presidential election. In the US, billions of dollars can be raised for campaigning and political advertising, far more than is spent in the UK (after all, UK parties only have six weeks to spend the money!).

For Britons, the amount of money raised and spent by Republicans and Democrats during the election campaign is dizzying. In April, the Federal Election Commission released data showing that in the first 12 months of the 2024 election cycle, which covers 2023, presidential candidates raised $374.9 million and spent $270.8 million, while political parties received $684.5 million. , spent $595 million, and the political action committee raised $3.7 billion and spent $3.1 billion, according to campaign finance reports filed with the committee.

Many political action committees (PACs) raise money and make direct contributions to a candidate’s campaign or party. In the case of a “super PAC,” the committee raises and spends an unlimited amount of money to support its preferred candidate, often funding massive advertising campaigns.

The current British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, is still young by comparison, at only 44 years old, and opinion polls suggest that Labor leader Keir Starmer may become the next prime minister. “Only” 61 years old.

The Institute for Policy Studies’ Duffy told CNBC that “there are a lot of older candidates in the United States,” which he described as a “gerontocracy trend,” where society is ruled by the elderly. “That’s very different from what’s happening around the world, where we’re actually seeing the age of world leaders declining.”

In the United States, the age of candidates reflects the decades it takes to build “political capital and relationships,” Duffy said. It’s the political capital and connections that appear to be keeping Biden’s campaign afloat, as his support has been shaken by his poor performance in televised debates with Trump.

Another difference between British elections and politics in general is that “moral issues” are not prominent issues of debate, dissent or disagreement. Unlike the US, where the abortion debate, gun control and same-sex marriage are at the center of contention, in the UK these debates are not hot topics as abortion is legal and gun ownership is rare and severely restricted (critics would argue Britain has a knife crime problem) and same-sex marriage (except among some clergy) is not controversial.

Likewise, “identity politics” and “culture wars” – an umbrella term for conflicts between opposing political groups with different cultural values ​​and beliefs – are less prominent in the UK, but Britain does have our ‘moment’ – the topic of immigration , trans rights, the UK’s relationship with the EU (yes, Brexit is still “a thing” eight years after the EU membership referendum) and assisted dying are all hot topics, and the divisions between the UK media and public are palpable. However, John Curtis, a top British pollster who has extensively studied British social attitudes, said that in the UK, such issues are “more of a personal issue than a party issue.”

“The moral issues of life and death have indeed been removed from our party politics, but other aspects of the debate between social liberals and social conservatives have not been removed and have become more important,” he told CNBC.

British political experts point out that unlike in the United States, where broad political debates tend to remain the focus, the British election campaign is likely to see more minor or fringe issues dominate the short-lived campaign.

A gambling scandal has erupted in the UK in recent weeks, with several Conservative candidates and one opposition Labor candidate being found to have placed bets on the date of the general election before it was officially announced, and its results, leading to misconduct in public office. accusations. Although the UK gambling regulator and police have launched an investigation, it is not yet clear how much was staked and those accused have denied wrongdoing.

Before the gambling fiasco, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s decision to skip the main commemorations of D-Day in France also caused a huge stir in the British media, who questioned his judgement. Stevens said such “diversions” during British election campaigns were common and often related to issues that started out as “matters of principle” and then “grew to ridiculous proportions”.

“Our campaign has a tendency to veer off in these weird directions and lose the big picture,” Stevens said. “I don’t think that’s going to happen in the United States, where the stakes are higher,” He said.

“The stakes are huge there.”