Template talk:Leaders of political parties in the United Kingdom

Re Caroline Lucas(Green Party leadership election - 5 Sept, 2008)

{{editsemiprotected}} Could someone please update info for Caroline Lucas MEP leader of the Green Party. Have updated on main list but have no access to change this one? Cheers, bisto.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Bisto143 (talk • contribs) 15:30, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

 Done, now added to the template. ~ mazca ^t | c 17:29, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Lucas has been removed as the green party are no longer represented in the UK parliament.--Lucy-marie (talk) 19:17, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Nigel Farage/UKIP

I have removed Nigel Farage from the list. According to the page on Bob Spink, Spink is an Independent, not UKIP, MP and so UKIP has no Westminster representation.

Perhaps it might be in order to have an extra section in this template indicating parties with MEPs? Uncantabrigian (talk) 19:43, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm reinstating Farage; UKIP has members in the House of Lords.--Mas 18 dl (talk) 19:40, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 19 July 2015

Add "Tim Farron" to Liberal Democrats. He was elected on 16 July 2015. 213.107.135.224 (talk) 11:20, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

 Done Thanks for pointing that out. - Arjayay (talk) 11:32, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

Parties or Groups

Is this really a list of Leaders of British political parties? Or is it a list of group leaders within the various legislatures in the UK?

• Douglas Carswell (UKIP) & David McNarry (UKIP)
• Martin McGuinness (Sinn Féin)
• Nigel Dodds (DUP) and Peter Robinson (DUP)
• Angus Robertson (SNP) and Nicola Sturgeon (SNP)

82.18.177.13 (talk) 18:37, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

I don't know what the answers should be to these questions, but I'd completely agree with the notion that this template is confusing. Also, I think that it is rather preposterous that a template with the words "Leaders of political parties in the United Kingdom" written across the top of it should make no mention of Natalie Bennett or Nigel Farage, despite their parties' significant elected representation. RedvBlue 19:39, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

House of Lords

Why is the house of Lords excluded from this? 82.18.177.13 (talk) 19:56, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Another good reason why this template needs looking at.

I really think that there needs to be a solution put in place for these problems. There is the 'Template:British political parties' which could act as a good guideline for the parties which need including here. At the same time, maybe that template could act as the one which readers should go to if they want to see which party is represented in which institution, whereas this template could simply name the leaders of all the parties on that template, while being careful not to repeat any names. I don't think that we need two templates telling us where all the politicians are in place, so I think that we can change this template to just an alphabetical list of the parties with the names of their leaders. RedvBlue 23:59, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

I would tend to agree with you, there are many issues with this Template:

• This is a list of group leaders of groups within legislatures in the UK, not party leaders
• Representatives in the House of Lords and European Parliament are not included
• Minor parties have no inclusion/exclusion criteria

As you suggest a simple list of "Leaders of British political parties" and their parties would fix these problems. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.18.177.13 (talk) 17:08, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Well, the first thing to consider is what the new look of this template should be. Should it be 'David Cameron (Conservative)' or 'Conservative: David Cameron'? I'd probably favour the first of those two options, seeing as this template is supposed to be about the leaders, rather than the parties. The next issue is whether to alphabetise the template based on parties, or leader's surnames. I'd probably favour doing it by parties, as that would probably make it easier for readers to navigate in most circumstances, although that would seem to contradict what I just said about the template being about the leaders first.

I'd say that the second thing to think about would be whether it would still be a good idea to include all the group leaders in one place, though not this template. A new template could be created, specialising in group leaders. However, I believe that would still lead to confusion, as I think a lot of readers could still end up nonplussed as to why Natalie Bennett, for example, would not warrant inclusion. Maybe the best answer to this is to list them all in the 'Leaders of political parties in the United Kingdom' article, which is linked to across the top of this template. That article already seems to be operating on a basis of group leaders. Yet, one glance at the 'Leaders in the House of Commons' section, and I can already see that the article itself has no idea which rules to follow.

With regards to inclusion criteria for this template, that is an issue which could potentially lead to a long and drawn out discussion. As a means to bypass this, I suggested using the parties listed in the template that I mentioned when I made my previous comment, as it will already have its own inclusion criteria. RedvBlue 16:27, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

So my First draft:

Main parties in Westminster, Europe or devolved legislature, No changes to minor— Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.18.177.13 (talk) 19:29, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

Don't know what happened to this discussion but I fully support changing to your draft RedvBlue. I came to this talk page because it is preposterous to have a template stating that, among other things, Douglas Carswell is the leader of UKIP. He is not. Jdcooper (talk) 21:33, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 15 May 2016

Change the incorrect claim that Caroline Lucas is leader of the Green Party so that it makes clear Natalie Bennett is the current leader. 2A02:C7D:411F:EC00:95EB:54AA:7BF:C8AC (talk) 23:34, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. — Music1201 ^talk 01:35, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 2 October 2016

Change Leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats from Kirsty Williams to Mark Williams (politician)MP who was elected as leader of the Welsh Lib Dems in 2016. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2016-wales-36237951

90.255.52.239 (talk) 22:21, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

•  Done, thanks. Guy (Help!) 05:59, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

Welsh Lib Dems

There is a slight anomaly here as the Welsh section is listed as National Assembly for Wales, but Jane Dodds, the leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats, is not a member of the Assembly. Dunarc (talk) 22:48, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

This is now a more significant anomaly as Jane Dodds is now a Member of Parliament, so I think this needs to be reworked somehow. Dunarc (talk) 22:48, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Change UK

This needs updating.--185.125.226.2 (talk) 18:30, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

Good spot. I have now updated this to reflect the fact that Anna Soubry is leader following the departure of Heidi Allen and five other MPs from the party. Dunarc (talk) 22:56, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Green Party co-leaders

From my understanding, Caroline Lucas might be the Green's only MP, but the party leaders are Jonathan Bartley and Siân Berry - this should be corrected.

I agree that this is an issue. That said I suspect technically she is leader of the group at Westminster (albeit due to the fact that she is currently the only green MP) and other non overall leaders who are Westminster leaders are included rather than the overall party leader in the House of Commons section (eg Ian Blackford for the SNP rather than Nicola Sturgeon). I think perhaps the template should be reworked - there is a similar issue with Jane Dodds as I have noted above. Dunarc (talk) 22:42, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

Severe problems and the way forward

This template has severe problems that have been noted multiple times, but its never had a specific holistic discussion.

The problems that I see in this article are:

The article is supposed to be "Leaders of political parties in the United Kingdom", not "Leaders of political groups in the United Kingdom"

Many of the people listed are not the leaders of their party, for example: The leader of the SNP is Nicola Sturgeon, the leader of SNP Parliamentary group is Ian Blackford. Ian is listed under Commons, Nicola under Scottish Parliament. There is only one leader of the SNP and it is Nicola Sturgeon, her seat being in the Scottish Parliament does not change that. But let's say we overlook this, and we set the precedent that people are listed under where their seat is. The leader of the Welsh Lib Dems is Jane Dodds, she does not sit in the National Assembly for Wales. She sits as a Welsh MP in Commonsbut is listed under National Assembly. Noone is listed as the leader of the Welsh Lib Dems in commons. (as an aside, in the National Assembly, you need at least 3 members to form a political group)

Representatives in the House of Lords and European Parliament are not included

This is particularly significant as the Brexit Party has 29 MEPs (~40% of the UK MEPs), UKIP has 1 seat in Lords. Currently they are both relegated to the category of "Minor Parties" which includes the Monster Raving Looney Party who currently hold no elected office and the National Health Action Party who have never held any elected office.

Minor parties have no inclusion/exclusion criteria

There are parties who have elected councillors (People Against Bureaucracy and others) that are not listed as minor parties while the MRLP and NHAP are.

Conclusion

So my questions are:

1. Does this template need to exist?
2. Should it be changed to "Leaders of political groups in the United Kingdom"?
3. Should Lords and the EP be added?
4. Should the Minor parties section be removed, or should rules be codified for inclusion?

Lalichii 11:05, 4 September 2019 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lalichii (talk • contribs)

Thanks for starting this discussion Lalichii, and I would agree with many of your points. For what it is worth in answer to the specific questions you raise my suggestions would be

• 1 & 2) There is a need for a template for party leaders for the UK. I wonder if this could be left for just the overall leaders of parties either represented in the House of Commons (including those who do not take their seats) and/or represented in the European Parliament and/or the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales and the Northern Ireland Assembly. Separate templates could be created for party group leaders at Westminster and the other parliaments/Assemblies.
• 3) I am open minded on this, but separate templates may be the best way forward.
• 4) I would lean towards removing most minor parties. If a party is not represented in the House of Commons, EP or one of the three devolved bodies then there leader is unlikely to be a figure of national importance. An alternative might be to set a vote threshold eg any party not represented in one of the bodies mentioned which has achieved more than 1% of the vote in the most recent general election.

I don't pretend these ideas are perfect, but I offer them as food for thought.

Dunarc (talk) 22:37, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

I think a good way to organise this is the leader of the highest national party (so if a party has a national affiliation, we only include the national one, not the regional one) that is represented within a legislature of the UK or the EU. That would put Welsh, Scottish Lib Dems as under the UK Lib Dems. It would also put the SDLP under the UK Labour Party, I'm not overly familiar with NI politics but thats how they're listed on their wiki page.

Because both UKIP and BXP have MEPs, they'd be included so that resolves that issue.

I think that these rules would resolve all 4 of the problems. If anyone has any thoughts they'd be appreciated. Otherwise, I'll make a version of the template at some point and we can decide if we want to make the change. Lalichii (talk) 11:38, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

Generally this sounds like good way forward. The only things I would say is that the SDLP tend to sit with Labour when they are represented at Westminster they are a distinct party with different policy aims. Also UKIP no longer have any MEPs, but I think that they are still represented in the Welsh Assembly. Dunarc (talk) 19:48, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

I put together a rough draft, I need to change the order of parties and reword certain things but I think this is the sort of layout that would be best. It breaks parties down into those represented only in devolved legislatures and those represented in either Commons, Lords, or the EP

Lalichii (talk) 11:05, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Vacancies

Richard Braine stepped down as UKIP leader and Jo Swinson as Lib Dem leader and though interim appointments have been announced permanent replacements have yet to be elected. Shouldn't vacancies be noted?--12.144.5.2 (talk) 20:37, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

In a similar vein, can we check leaders of the Green Party?

Humza Yousaf replaced by John Swinney

Needs updating here 150.143.27.147 (talk) 07:21, 8 May 2024 (UTC)