The Legal Forms of UK Political Parties and Their Implications for Intra-Party Democracy (focus on Reform UK and the Green Party)

This seminar is part of the Edinburgh Centre for Constitutional Law seminar series. 

UK political parties are traditionally formed as unincorporated associations. However, Reform UK won 14 percent of the vote share and five seats in the UK 2024 General Election as a private company, without a constitution or associative contract of membership. In 2023, the Green Party of England and Wales also outlined that they were becoming a private company. Political parties that use this legal form pose significant questions as to the degree to which they are internally democratic. While Reform UK have committed to giving members more control, the Greens indicate that despite becoming a company, it will ‘not affect any constitutional terms or provisions’. This paper therefore applies an original framework to assess and measure intra-party democracy. It argues that political parties can still be internally democratic even if their legal form is of a private company. 

Speaker 
Dr Chris Jones

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