Editing Political realignment (section)

==== United Kingdom ====
* [[1918 United Kingdom general election in Ireland]] — [[Sinn Féin]] victory
** For the previous four decades, Irish politics had been dominated by the moderate [[nationalist]] [[Irish Parliamentary Party]], which sought [[Home Rule]] within the [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|United Kingdom]]. The 1918 general election was a landslide victory for the [[Irish Republicanism|republican]] [[Sinn Féin]] party, which won nearly 70% of the seats. The new Sinn Féin MPs refused to take their seats in the [[Parliament of the United Kingdom|House of Commons]], and instead set up their own republican assembly called [[First Dáil|Dáil Éireann]]. This assembly issued a [[unilateral declaration of independence]], which led to the start of the [[Irish War of Independence|War of Independence]] and eventually led to Irish independence from the United Kingdom in 1922. The Irish Parliamentary Party never recovered from this defeat. The two largest parties in Ireland, [[Fianna Fáil]] and [[Fine Gael]], originated from splits in the Sinn Féin party which won the election of 1918.
* [[1922 United Kingdom general election]] – [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]] forms Loyal Opposition
** For over 200 years, the [[Liberal Party (UK)|Liberal]]s and [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative]]s (and their antecedents) had been the UK's two major parties; however, the 1922 general election saw [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour]] overtake the Liberals in the political landscape. Labour and the Conservatives have been the UK's two major parties since then, and government has alternated only between the two parties ever since.
* [[1979 United Kingdom general election]] – [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative]] victory; [[Margaret Thatcher]] Prime Minister
** This election brought the Conservatives into government where they remained for eighteen uninterrupted years. Thatcher's policies of [[monetarism]] and [[privatisation]] represented a very different strand of Conservatism to that of previous governments and a bold shift from the [[post-war consensus]] that had existed since 1945. The shockwaves led to a new centrist party being formed by some disenchanted Labour MPs (the [[Social Democratic Party (UK)|SDP]]) in 1981, and a long period in opposition for [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour]], during which they abandoned many socialist policies (notably [[Clause IV]] which advocated [[nationalisation|common ownership]]) and were transformed into "[[New Labour]]" before they returned to government in a landslide victory at the 1997 general election under the leadership of [[Tony Blair]]. At a more base level, it led to a shift in voting patterns as the traditional class-based voting started to break down and many of the working classes (in particular skilled workers, homeowners and those in southern England) voted Conservative, whilst at the same time many public sector professionals shifted their support to Labour.
* [[2015 United Kingdom general election]]
**The election saw [[Euroscepticism]] and [[Scottish Nationalism]] emerge as major forces in the UK political discourse, with the [[UK Independence Party]] and [[Scottish National Party]] finishing third in the popular vote and seat count respectively, and the [[Liberal Democrats (UK)|Liberal Democrats]], the country's traditional third-party, losing 49 of the 57 seats it had won at the previous general election. The SNP's victories, largely at the expense of the Scottish Labour and Liberal Democrat parties, established them as the dominant party in Scotland's electoral politics, a position they have since maintained. UKIP did not continue to enjoy electoral success (in part because they only won a single seat despite finishing third in the popular vote) and rapidly declined thereafter, but many of their policies were subsequently adopted by the [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative Party]], who formed a majority government for the first time since 1992.
* [[2019 United Kingdom general election]] – Conservative victory; [[Boris Johnson]] Prime Minister
** The [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative Party]] won a [[landslide victory]] over the [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]], winning many seats in the [[Red wall (British politics)|red wall]], including seats that have never voted Conservative for over a century.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Results of the 2019 General Election |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2019/results |access-date=2021-01-02 |website=BBC News |language=en-GB}}</ref> This was repeated again in 2021 local elections for mayoral and council elections, where the Conservatives made large gains in red wall areas but Labour (along with the [[Liberal Democrats (UK)|Liberal Democrats]] and the [[Green Party of England and Wales|Green Party]]) made gains in the south of England, with more educated voters.