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The same was true in 1983: despite the corset of First Past the Post, despite being told they were "wasting their vote" or "letting the Tories in", 1 in 4 voters rebelled against the Big Two & backed the SDP/Lib Alliance. So can @TheIndGroup escape the SDP's fate? [THREAD] 1/12
2. Any new party faces 3 big problems. The first is an electoral system structurally designed to protect the Big Two. In 1983, Labour only just beat the Alliance into second place, winning just 2% more of the vote. Yet First Past the Post gave Labour more than 9 times as many MPs 
3. 30 years later, UKIP faced the same problem. It won nearly 4 million votes in 2015 but only a single seat in Parliament. Unless a party has a strong geographical base, like the Scottish National Party or Plaid Cymru, First Past the Post simply locks it out.
4. The second big problem is "purpose". Half the electorate might want a new party, but they don't all want the *same* party. This problem bedeviled the SDP: should it be a new force, representing the "Radical Centre" (Roy Jenkins), or a reformed version of Labour (Bill Rodgers)?
5. @TheIndGroup has a similar dilemma - and its MPs are more ideologically diverse. Their potential voters may not want Corbyn or Rees-Mogg running the country, but on questions like freedom of movement, public spending & taxation, there is much less common ground.
6. The third barrier against any new party is the resilience of the Big Two. In 1981, the SDP expected one or both to break up. But the Falklands & economic recovery restored the Conservatives' fortunes, while Labour defanged Benn, expelled Militant and tacked back to the centre.
7. Historically, insurgent parties that have made it into government - Labour after 1918 & the Scottish National Party - broke through after one of the older parties collapsed: the Liberal Party in WW1 & the Scottish Conservatives in the 1980s-90s. That never happened for the SDP
8. So can @TheIndGroup succeed where the SDP failed? There's no doubt that a demand exists. They may not have a Roy Jenkins or a Shirley Williams, but nor do the existing frontbenches. If Chris Grayling and Richard Burgon are the competition, their talent pool is probably fine.
9. Unlike the SDP, they've recruited three high-profile Conservatives with cross-party appeal. That poses its own problems, but suggests that the forces eating away at the Big Two are stronger now than in the 80s. And it's this, ultimately, that may decide its success or failure.
10. Brexit has created a new faultline in British politics that simply does not fit with the Labour/Tory divide. And as Labour discovered in Scotland in 2015, when the dividing lines in politics change, a party designed for different questions can collapse with astonishing speed.
11. The longer the Brexit divide stays open, the more it will tear at the structural integrity of the Big Two. Even First Past the Post has a tipping point, when it turns from a platform to a trapdoor, as the Scottish Conservatives found after 1983.
12. The Lab/Tory duopoly enjoys strong loyalties, deep pockets & an electoral system designed to protect it. But Brexit is eating like acid at its roots. All empires fall. The gates are open, new forces mustering. For one of the Big Two, a new dark age *may* just be coming. [END]
