Registration of Political Parties Act 1998

Registration of Political Parties Act 1998
Dates
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Citation	1998 c. 48
Territorial extent	United Kingdom
Royal assent	19 November 1998
Revised text of statute as amended

The Registration of Political Parties Act 1998 (c. 48), or An Act to make provision about the registration of political parties, is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom to set up a register of political parties in the United Kingdom. Previously there had been no such register, and political parties were not specially recognised. There are currently 468 political parties registered in the UK as of 8 October 2016.

The legislation was introduced for a variety of reasons. It was planned to introduce some elements of list-based proportional representation in elections to the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly, and for that, political parties needed to have a stronger legal recognition. Additionally, various pieces of legislation needed to refer to parties and so were using ad hoc definitions, which might have been incompatible.

Another motivation was the use of the names Literal Democrats, Conversative Party and Labor Party by people in elections in the 1990s; these names were criticised as potentially confusing with the names of the three major parties in the UK (the Liberal Democrats, the Conservative Party and the Labour Party respectively). In the 1994 European Elections, Richard Huggett stood as a Literal Democrat candidate for the Devon and East Plymouth seat, taking more votes than the Conservative Party margin over the Liberal Democrats, leading to a legal challenge by the Liberal Democrat candidate.^[1]^[2]

The legislation therefore introduced a register of political parties; and included provisions to prohibit "confusion" with already-existing parties, names that were "more than six words", or were "obscene or offensive".

As the Act also permitted logos on ballot papers, the act also introduced a similar register for emblems, which had the result that the Communist Party of Britain is the only party in the United Kingdom permitted to use the hammer and sickle as its ballot paper logo, although they usually use the hammer and dove variant. Parties may register more than one emblem, or none at all; most have two or three.

The Act was amended by the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (2000 c. 41) to change the registration authority to the Electoral Commission.

References

↑ "Challenger could spell ballot paper trouble for Tories' Davis". The Scotsman, 21 February 2005. Archived from the original on 24 May 2011.
↑ "BBC Rewind: A Literal Democrat". BBC News. 13 June 1994. Retrieved 24 January 2016.

External links

Registration of Political Parties Act 1998, as amended

United Kingdom legislation

Pre-Parliamentary legislation	List of English statutes Charter of Liberties Magna Carta

Acts of Parliament by states preceding the Kingdom of Great Britain	Acts of the Parliament of England to 1483 1485–1601 1603–1641 Interregnum (1642–1660) 1660–1699 1700–1706 Acts of the Parliament of Scotland

Acts of Parliament of the Kingdom of Great Britain	1707–1719 1720–1739 1740–1759 1760–1779 1780–1800

Acts of the Parliament of Ireland	to 1700 1701–1800

Acts of Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland	1801–1819 1820–1839 1840–1859 1860–1879 1880–1899 1900–1919 1920–1939 1940–1959 1960–1979 1980–1999 2000 to date Halsbury's Statutes Legislation.gov.uk Short titles

Church of England measures	List Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919

Legislation of devolved institutions	Acts of the Scottish Parliament List Acts and Measures of the National Assembly for Wales List Acts of the Northern Ireland Assembly List Acts of the Parliament of Northern Ireland List Orders in Council for Northern Ireland List

Orders-in-Council	Order in Council

Secondary legislation	United Kingdom Statutory Instruments Scottish Statutory Instruments Acts of Sederunt Acts of Adjournal

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