I am from the most wonderful country in the known universe, The United Kingdom, or possibly Great Britain. (I have lived here all my life, and to be honest, I still don't know what the difference is. I do know that in about six years, neither of them will include Scotland and that it's possible The Republic of Ireland might reunite with Northern Ireland, but that's a whole other matter).
There are a lot of parties in Northern Ireland I am not sure about, because they only stand in Northern Ireland, so I've never had the chance to vote for them, or a reason to investigate their policies. The only reason I know about two of them are because they appear in the news A LOT.
The DUP (Democratic Unionist Party, I think?) : Currently providing Maggie May with a majority, for the very cheap cost of £150,000 each. Some people call it a bribe, others call it a bargain. They appear to be a party stuck in the 80s. (Possibly the 1680s). Not big on women's rights, not big on gay rights, not big on any rights on than The Ten Commandments, as far as I can tell.
Sinn Fein (Ourselves Alone) : Former political wing of The IRA (not a nice group of people, known for killing people, blowing things up and generally doing mean things to a lot of people) and now more responsible and in government at Stormont in Northern Ireland. Or they were until recently when it all went a bit catawumpus after some massive scandal that I really didn't understand (and honestly didn't care that much about). There is supposed to be a new power sharing agreement in place, or at least being discussed, but now that Maggie May is in bed with Arlene Phillips (metaphorically speaking - you remember my comment about gay rights?) there is some suspicion that any sort of agreement is going to be hard to come by because there is a definition feeling The Westminster government can no longer be neutral when negotiating or mediating between Sinn Fein and The DUP.
Over in Scotland there is the usual crop of parties (which I will come to shortly) but the primary party is The SNP.
The Scottish National Party : Primarily known for advocating Scottish independence from the rest of the UK, they also have some other policies but (much like the parties in Northern Ireland) The SNP don't stand for seats south of the border, so I've never had much reason to investigate them. Two years ago they swept the board in the election, wiping out all opposition in Scotland. However in the most recent election, they lost ground because they were still advocating independence, and apparently fewer people wanted to listen now. They are still the dominant force in Scottish politics, but that might change if they continue to focus on their one policy stance.
Down in Wales there is another primary party Plaid Cymru, along with the other parties.
Plaid Cymru : A party that stands only in Welsh seats, and because of this I know nothing about it. Literally couldn't tell you a thing. So I won't even ramble on about it.
And so that leads us on to the more generic parties that cover most of the UK mainland, going from right to left (so to speak)
The National Front : A more or less defunct party that I am pretty sure doesn't exist. From what I understand, they are literally a neo-Nazi front and not a very nice group of people. Some would say they are nicer than The IRA (the terrorist group I mentioned before) but I guess it depends on your perspective, because this "party" was apparently responsible for any number of hate crimes in the late 60s and early 70s.
The BNP : What The National Front became when they realised people didn't actually like neo-Nazis. They pretended to be the nice, gentler face of racism and hate, but they were, in fact, just as bad, just as nasty and just as racist. They never really got anywhere and are now more or less out of business as a party.
UKIP (United Kingdom Independence Party) : Founded as a protest party to get The UK out of The EU, they managed to achieved the first part of their goal on the 23rd of June, 2016. However that proved to be their undoing, because since then they have pretty much lost all support and haven't had any success since. However this could also have something to do with the fact they are an incredibly racist, hate filled party. While there is no actual proof that The BNP turned into UKIP, the fact that political support for The BNP was waning and vanishing at the very same time that political support for UKIP was rising cannot simply be coincidence, and the fact that most of their policies are almost identical makes it even less of a coincidence. Their entire manifesto seems dedicated to making Britain a Muslim free country by torturing mentally torturing them until they give up and move out of the country. They are nothing short of a hate group pretending to be civilised human beings.
Conservative (aka Tory) : The least objectionable of the right wing parties, which given how objectionable they are is saying something about the rest. While they are not out and out racist like the rest, they do tend to create policies that are directed to wiping out the poorest and neediest in society, while rewarding the richest 1%. They generally oppose public services, public property and public anything. Ever since the early 80s, when Thatcher ruled the roost, there has been a continued policy to wipe out any publicly owned service, to wipe out or privatise the NHS, to wipe out the BBC and generally to such up to Rupert Murcoch. The Leveson Inquiry was a chance to make the press answerable for all of their corruption and the lies they wrote, but with a Conservative government in power, they simply caved and gave in to Murdoch and the rest of the press. And so it goes, for it was ever thus. Their current leader, Theresa "Maggie" May is a woman who was so confident in her support that - in order to deal with the other members of Parliament (from all the other parties) who had the temerity and impudence not to support her policies - she called an unnecessary election to increase a majority (which she already had) and not only did she lose the outright majority she had, she lost what was predicted to be a 150 to 200 seat majority less than five weeks before the election. Truly she is a goddess amongst mere mortals.
Liberal Democrats : Once a staunch part of the social liberal policies, they caved for a tiny whiff of power in 2010, and have now become a joke. Nick Clegg, who put himself forward as the champion of the underdog, went into coalition with David Cameron and forfeited every single one of his principles to do it. Besides going back on his major campaign pledge on tuition fees, he let his entire party go for a pretend referendum on a change in the electoral system which he was never going to win (and he probably knew it). He screwed over the entire liberal movement just so he could play at being Deputy Prime Minister while sucking David Cameron's cock for five years. However this story does have a happy ending, because five years after he betrayed the country, his party was ousted in the most humiliating electoral defeat for a good long while, and two years later he lost his seat. So, swings and roundabouts.
Labour : In the early eighties, they could not win an election because they were considered too socialist. Then, under Tony Blair, they rebranded themselves as New Labour, and took the country by storm, essentially because they drove to the middle of the road. Under their governorship, the gap between rich and poor narrowed more than ever before to the lowest level in recent history (and also, sadly, followed America into one of the most unholy wars in recent history). Then, due to some banks in America selling sub-prime mortgages, the entire world went into meltdown, and Labour were kicked out of office in 2010 to be replaced by the bastard coalition from hell. The Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) tried to stick with the same policies that had lost them the previous election by electing DavEd Miliband, but five years later they got their ass kicked even harder. So the members of the Labour Party rebelled and put an actual left-wing member of the party in charge. The PLP, for reasons best known only to them decided this man (Mr Jeremy Corbyn) would never get them elected, so they launched a leadership challenge after the failed Brexit campaign. This backfired in a SPECTACULAR fashion because he got even more support. And in the next election, Labour was returned with far more seats, far more support and proof positive that Jeremy Corbyn was actually popular. However this has yet to convince The PLP that he should be leader, and there are still murmurs of getting rid of him.
Green : The hippies and tree huggers. Known mostly for environmental policies, they currently have one seat. Which given they are on the fringe of politics is impressive, and given it is one more seat than UKIP is quite funny.
That's it for the UK.
(Note - there is a chance this post might reflect my personal bias about some of the parties).
