From late September to early October, the UK’s political parties gather for their autumn conferences. The Conservatives, Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish National Party will be among the parties bringing their members and MPs together at some expense in a season that lasts about three weeks.
Party conferences fulfil a lot of important political functions in the British party system. Florence Faucher-King, a political scientist based at Sciences Po in Paris, has written the definitive study of British party conferences in the form of an anthropological analysis.
She argues that party conferences are central to the life of political parties. They contribute to setting policy agendas, developing policy options, legitimising policy choices, building party cohesion, motivating activists, publicising party activities and testing effective campaign messages among the wider public.
