So all you want for Christmas is a new political party?

UK politics is in a shocking mess with the two big parties riven by factions, splits and arguments. We have parts of the Conservatives referring to colleagues as "quislings" and "traitors" at the same time as the Labour Party's left is calling for anyone with the mildest critique of the leader to leave the party and join the Tories. The cause of all this - or most of the cause - is the division over the UK's imminent departure from the European Union. It's not simply a matter of leave versus remain any more but a bewildering mish-mash of options, arrangements, contested votes and personal vendettas all fuelled by the high octane fuel of twitter. It's time for a new party to crawl from out of this chaos armed with wisdom, common sense and an unshakable moderate purpose - or so lots of people seem to think (or want or believe).

Now it is possible that a new party could be formed - indeed we are blessed with dozens of such things. It is also possible that this new party will sweep all before it as people leap at following a political movement that isn't either obsessed with One True Brexit or led by Jeremy Corbyn and a clique of Tankies (although we should remember that there is a national party, the Liberal Democrats, that meets these criteria and it isn't bounding ahead in popular support). But these things are unlikely for a whole lot of reasons - here are a few thoughts.

The last successful new national political party in Great Britain was formed in 1900. We call it the Labour Party (it's true to say, however, that the Scottish National Party and, to a lesser extent, Plaid Cymru are also successes and were founded more recently). It took the Labour Party nearly 25 years to get a sniff at government and 45 years to secure an overall majority. And Labour was also helped by the massive expansion of the franchise in 1918 (not just women but millions of working class men too). So, if you're seeing your new party as something that will rush Chuka Umuna, Chris Leslie or Justine Greening into Downing Street perhaps think again.

The Labour Party (and for that matter the SNP) weren't set up by existing politicians unhappy with the current political arrangements. Labour was, in essence, formed by the trade union movement and began life with an established and organised activist base as a result. Even so it wasn't until the 1922 election that Labour got more than 100 MPs elected. A bunch of existing politicians setting up a new party has precedents (Oswald Mosley's New Party in 1931 and the slightly more successful Social Democrats in the 1980s) but without the activist base it is pretty difficult to turn fine words into campaigning on the ground. In the case of the SDP, they were subsumed into the Liberal Party following pacts and alliances simply because the Liberals already had an organisation, local councillors and local parties.

Again this doesn't prevent a new party succeeding but it makes it more hard work than it looks when some bright-eyed politicians appear smiling and blinking on the news shows. And it won't be those politicians doing the slog but some people who, at the smiling and blinking point, aren't involved with the new party. Moreover, the chitter-chatter about new centre parties covers up another essential flaw - these parties are light on ideology and unsure on their positioning. This makes it difficult for them to deal with the inevitable problems that come from one or other established party occupying politics' centre ground.

To succeed any new political party has to decide which of the established parties it plans on replacing (in the manner of Labour replacing the old Liberal party). As those media-friendly, centrists parade their credentials it is important to target one or other existing party - saying something like "we'll take moderate votes from both parties" is to fight on two fronts making it more difficult to win. Far better to say something like "Labour has been taken over by the far left, we want to return to the values of Attlee, Gaitskill and Wilson in providing a voice for Britain's workers and their families". Or, if it's the Tories in your sights, "the Conservative party needs to be the voice of decent, patriotic communities but its obsession with Europe and austerity is failing these people". And remember that this message isn't just for 2022 (or whenever there's an election) but for as long as it takes to complete the replacement of the targeted political party.

All this means that you'll lose - six years of Labour campaigning after its formation resulted in just two MPs - and, more significantly, you will split the vote for left or right resulting in them being out of power or in unstable coalitions for decades. Lots on the left blame the SDP and Liberal Democrats for Margaret Thatcher's governments (and I guess that plenty of Liberals back in the first half of the 20th century thought the same of Labour).

Setting up new political parties works where you've a system of proportional representation (just look at Ireland or Holland for a guide) but even in such systems being an established political brand with an organisation and loyal supporters counts for a great deal. In the UK with its first-past-the-post system new parties start at a disadvantage and you can rest assured that existing politicians are not going to vote for self-destruction just for the sake of your shiny new centrist party.

A new party might work but the UK's political game, even with the current chaos, is stacked against new political parties (and, it seems, pretty much against either radical change or the fixing of mistakes within the existing big parties). You may want a new party for Christmas but it's likely to end up like one of those toys that everyone wanted, played with once or twice and then left untouched in favour of the Lego set with the pieces missing.

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