Evaluate the importance of Political parties to UK democracy

Political parties allow for greater cohesion within the UK parliament which in turn increases its ability to democratically decide on Policy. The requirement for any UK executive to command the confidence of the lower house, means that without parliament containing collective groups it would be incredibly difficult for any Government to form. It is also true that the Prime Minister is only truly able to claim a national mandate due to the general understanding that when voting for a local representative, you are also implicitly voting for their parties leader to become Prime Minister. Each of these functions of Political parties are incredibly important for UK democracy to continue functioning in the way that it does, specifically due to it being a Parliamentary democracy. Political parties could potentially be seen to harm democracy in that they effectively force every Political view in the country to conform with one of three major parties, as well as a small number of specialist or regional parties. However this negative is far outweighed by the ability of Political parties to provide both the Legislature and Executive with a democratic mandate to rule directly from the populous, which is ultimately the most important feature of democracy, making Political parties incredibly important to UK democracy.