Opposition is something that goes against or disagrees with an idea. This can be political, in a debate, or in a game. In politics, the opposition is the largest party in parliament that isn’t part of government. Its job is to question and scrutinise the government’s work.
There are two ways the opposition can scrutinise government policy in parliament: asking questions and sitting on select committees. The opposition also has a right of reply after key government announcements, which allows them to keep issues in the public eye. For example, when the Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a three-tier lockdown for England during the Covid-19 pandemic in October 2020, shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer took advantage of this right of reply to call for a two-tiered lockdown after footballer Marcus Rashford campaigned for it.
In countries with proportional representation, there are often multiple parties that can form a parliamentary opposition, but they may have little in common or minimal interest in forming a united bloc against the government. This can reduce parliamentary opposition to tokenism.
A well-organised parliamentary opposition can be an essential tool for democratic engagement, but it is not always easy to implement. Many governments, particularly in authoritarian countries, have tame opposition parties for appearance sake. Nevertheless, in all democracies, a robust and informed parliamentary opposition is a key feature of a healthy democracy.
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