Compare and contrast the structure of the Labour and Conservative Parties

... Compare and contrast the structure of the Labour and Conservative Parties. Which do you consider to be most democratic and why? The Labour Party has generally always been thought of as the more internally democratic party. This stems from the origins of the two parties. The Tory party was established when the only voters were the land-owning gentry. This meant it never had to anything more than a purely parliamentary party. The Labour Party however was born out of the need for a representative of the newly enfranchised working-class. The trade union part in the party's creation has ensured its place in its running. These assumptions have been challenged recently however by reforms by both parties in the 1990s and the beginning of the 21st Century. The structure of the Labour Party has always been a complex maze of different power groups, including its individual membership (currently 350,000), trade unions,

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