On 09/06/2015 23:13, Adrian wrote:
On Tue, 09 Jun 2015 23:06:34 +0100, Nightjar "cpb"@ wrote:

I see your point, but I disagree that a party that got 12% vote
share is a "minority".

Is there any official definition of minority when it comes to
political parties?...

Generally, any party that has so little electoral support that it has
no realistic prospect of forming or being part of a government.

Ah. Thanks. UKIP supporters will be in denial about this.

ITYM greens or liberal democrats or SNP actually. All polled far less
than UKIP.

Not much use if that doesn't translate to seats in Parliament.

I don't think any of them would argue about being a "minority" party, tbh,
although there's a fair case that the SNP aren't - not with 50% of votes
cast, 35.5% of the electorate, and 95% of seats...

I would say there are three broad categories:

A major party is one that can reasonably hope to be able to form a
government; really only Labour and the Conservatives.

A minor party is unlikely to be able to form a government by itself, but
has enough clout to be asked to form a government with another party
that does not have a clear majority. I would still class the Lib Dems as
a minor party, irrespective of their recent showing, and the SNP have
moved up to that category since the last election.

A minority party has no realistic chance of being part of a government,
which covers everybody else.

--
Colin Bignell