Uniparty

Uniparty is used as a term to suggest that ostensibly separate political parties actually function as a single party. It is used either to describe the United States Republican Party and Democratic Party as two faces of a uniparty, or in reference to the British Conservative Party and Labour Party.^[1] The implication of the term is that despite their public differences, the two parties operate behind closed doors as a single entity, intentionally creating social strife and dividing people between them while pursuing a single secret uniform set of actual goals. It is further supposed that this "uniparty" actively works to suppress any genuine alternatives from arising, using control of the media and ballot access limitations.^[2]

Use by country

United States

"Uniparty" dates back to a 1944 scandal wherein a letter (which turned out to be a forgery) was claimed to show that Franklin D. Roosevelt had selected Wendell Willkie to be his opponent in the 1940 election.^[3] Supporters of the 2000 Green Party presidential bid of Ralph Nader used the term extensively, and Nader himself called the prevailing political structure a "corporate uniparty" in his 2002 book Crashing the Party.^[3]

Afterwards, the term was largely dormant, being sporadically used by third parties until it was adopted by Steve Bannon in describing how in his view the Republican "establishment" was working with the Democrats to suppress Donald Trump's campaign seeking the 2016 Republican nomination.^[3] The term saw resurgence in 2024 with claims by figures including Marjorie Taylor Greene and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that the two-party system operates as a uniparty.^[4][5] When Elon Musk announced he would create his own third party, the America Party, on 5 July 2025, he stated that he was doing so because the Republicans and Democrats had become a "Uniparty".^[6]

United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, the term was used to described the rightward shift of the Labour Party under Keir Starmer that was argued to have made the Conservative and Labour parties overlap to the point of almost being indistinguishable.^[7]

See also

• Bipartisanship in United States politics
• Boll weevil (politics)
• Controlled opposition
• Dominant-party system
• Duverger's law
• Grand coalition
• One-party state
• POPiS
• Problem Solvers Caucus
• PSD–PNL Alliance
• Puntofijo Pact
• Republicrat
• Rockefeller Republican
• Southern Democrats
• Two-party system