United Kingdom Political System

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The political system of the United Kingdom since the Glorious Revolution has been based on the concept that the King in Parliament (also the-Crown-in-Parliament or the-Queen-in-Parliament ) has full state authority. It is not the people themselves who are sovereign , but parliament (see parliamentary sovereignty ), consisting of the upper house and the lower house , together with the monarch . Since 1911, however, political power has rested almost exclusively with the House of Commons and the Prime Minister . A British monarch has not exercised his right to object to laws passed by a parliamentary majority since the early 18th century. This system of government , often referred to as the Westminster system , has also been adopted by other states, e.g. B. from Canada , India , Australia , New Zealand , Singapore and Jamaica .

In contrast to almost all states, the United Kingdom does not have a codified constitution . Rather, it consists of common law , enacted constitutional laws, and common law , collectively referred to as British constitutional law. Northern Ireland and the metropolitan area of ​​London have had their own regional parliaments and governments since July 1, 1998, and Scotland and Wales since 1999 as part of devolution . The United Kingdom is a founding member of NATO and the Commonwealth of Nations . It is also a permanent member of the UN Security Council and had to exit in 2020 , Member States of the European Union .

Constitution and Constitutional Customs

Unlike most nation states , the United Kingdom does not have a codified constitution, i.e. it does not have a single document that defines the country's political system and the powers and restrictions of individual state organs . Rather, the constitutional law of the United Kingdom is based on several sources, the importance and weighting of which is subject to constant adaptation to current circumstances. The sources of British constitutional law include statute law, to a minimal extent but often of fundamental importance, common law, i.e. customary law created by multiple precedents, conventions that mostly serve to limit political action, laws and customs of parliament, which are considered to be influential Constitutional interpreters like Walter Bagehot and William Blackstone, and to some extent European law .

Despite a lack of delimitation in many cases, British constitutional law has six undisputed basic principles, namely the constitutional monarchy , the central unitary state , representative democracy , the sovereignty of parliament , the rule of law and the separation of powers .

Constitutional bodies

Head of state

Queen Elizabeth II

The king or queen is the head of state of the United Kingdom and also the head of state of 15 other states in the Commonwealth of Nations as well as the crown possessions (English crown dependencies ). The monarch, currently Queen Elizabeth II , theoretically holds executive , legislative and judicial powers. Based on common law, the monarch appoints the leader of the largest party in the lower house to be prime minister. Theoretically, however, there is the possibility of appointing any British citizen as Prime Minister, provided he is not a member of the House of Lords .

The monarch grants royal assent to a law passed by the other two houses of parliament, although theoretically he has the option of refusing to do so. The Royal Assent has so far been refused by the incumbent Queen in at least 39 cases, according to customary constitutional law.

The monarch can dissolve the lower house at any time, but does so only on the recommendation of the prime minister. Other sovereign rights, such as the appointment of ministers or declarations of war, are the sole competence of the prime minister or the cabinet.

Nowadays the monarch has an almost purely ceremonial role; its power is limited by common law and public opinion. In 1867 the constitutional theorist Walter Bagehot generally assigned three basic rights to constitutional monarchs: "The right to be heard, the right to give advice and the right to warn." The incumbent Prime Minister meets weekly with the monarch for a confidential exchange of ideas.

government

Boris Johnson , Prime Minister since July 24, 2019

The government exercises executive power in the United Kingdom. The monarch appoints a prime minister, following the strict customary law that he is a member of the lower house and is able to form a majority government. The Prime Minister then appoints his ministers; each of them head their ministry. The cabinet consists of an average of 20 ministers.

As in other parliamentary systems of government , the government relies on and is accountable to the House of Commons. A successful vote of no confidence forces the government either to resign or to dissolve the House of Commons, which leads to an early election. In practice, all major parties are so-called whip ( whips ) controls which ensure that MPs vote according to the party line. If the government has a large majority, it is unlikely to lose a legislative vote.

Sometimes when a government has a narrow majority and an important vote is due, sick MPs are wheeled in sick MPs to get a majority of the votes. Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair received such large majorities in 1983 and 1997, respectively, that they could decide almost all votes according to their ideas and implement fundamental reforms. On the other hand, prime ministers like John Major , who only had a narrow majority, could easily lose votes if some disregarded parliamentary groups and did not vote for the bill. It is difficult for weak governments to pass controversial laws. They are forced to negotiate with groups within their own party or to seek support from the opposition.

Only questions of weighty moral importance for many MPs can relativize the faction obligation. Tony Blair won parliamentary approval for British participation in the Iraq war , primarily with the help of the opposition Conservative Party. On March 18, 2003, 139 members of the Labor Party supported an amendment, which was ultimately rejected and which would have made a UN mandate mandatory for a British armed conflict .

A specialty of the British executive is the large number of its subordinate authorities, so-called non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs) , "non-ministerial public administration", which are responsible for the implementation of executive targets with relative freedom and therefore often allocate large volumes of public funds in their area of ​​responsibility . NDPBs occur at the national and also at the local level. Garnett and Lynch criticize this executive model for the assignment of patronage offices, a lack of transparency in methods and decisions, and a lack of accountability to elected bodies. In the public debate, NDPBs are primarily known as quasi-autonomous non-governmental organizations , “quasi-autonomous organizations subordinate to the government”. Garnett and Lynch called this network of more than 5,500 offices structured in this way the “quango state” , ie a state whose autonomously acting central administration reluctantly submits to the instructions of the sovereign. This applied z. B. in the early 1980s, before Margaret Thatcher's reform efforts, as very powerful; the BBC parodied the power struggles between Prime Minister Thatcher and the ministerial bureaucracy on Yes Minister and Yes, Prime Minister .

houses of Parliament

The British Parliament meets in the Palace of Westminster

The UK Parliament is at the heart of the UK political system. It is the highest legislative power ( parliamentary sovereignty ) and consists of two chambers, the House of Commons (lower house) and the House of Lords (upper house), as well as the respective monarch.

In local elections, women had the right to vote from 1869, and from 1907 to vote. According to Martin, this right was restricted to women who paid taxes and was only valid in certain parts of the country. On February 2, 1918, the Representation of the People Act gave women limited voting rights: the minimum voting age for women was 30. Women were also only allowed to vote if they were single or their husbands paid at least five pounds sterling per year in taxes, female householders or Were university graduates. The age limit was introduced to avoid a numerical balance between women and men. For men, on the other hand, from 1921 there was universal suffrage from the age of 21. For men who had been in military service and who met certain requirements for length of stay on land and property, the limit was 19 years. Full equality with men in terms of the right to vote was achieved on July 2, 1928.

House of Commons

The House of Commons consists of 650 MPs. The country is divided into constituencies , which are determined by the Boundary Commission and in each of which a representative is elected by majority voting. It is common nowadays for both the Prime Minister and the opposition leader to belong to the House of Commons, not the House of Lords as was the case in the past. Alec Douglas-Home gave up his seat in the House of Lords a few days after taking office in 1963. The last House of Lords Prime Minister was Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury , in 1902.

Usually, one party has because of the electoral system (first past the post) the absolute majority . The Conservative Party and the Labor Party take turns in government, which the United Kingdom in fact a two-party system has. Between 2010 and 2015, the Liberal Democrats were involved in a government for the first time ( Cameron I cabinet ). In the rare cases where neither party achieves an absolute majority, the monarch gives the party leader the mandate to form a government who is most likely to rally a majority behind him. This option is also chosen in times of national crisis, e.g. B. in times of war. This was the case in 1916 when David Lloyd George took on the mandate to form a government after Andrew Bonar Law had refused (→ Lloyd George Government ). Winston Churchill also formed an all-party government in 1940 .

The government is not confirmed by a vote in the House of Commons, but by a commission appointed by the monarch. The House of Commons is given the first opportunity to express its confidence when the speech from the throne , i.e. H. the government program, is voted on. The chairman of the lower house is the speaker .

House of Lords

The House of Lords was once an assembly made up entirely of nobles ( peers ) with inherited titles. Following a major reform in 1999, most of the hereditary seats were abolished.

The number of members of the House of Lords is not fixed. On July 1, 2011, it consisted of 786 members and 21 members on leave of absence . Of these, only 92 are hereditary peers who are temporarily elected by their peers. In addition, the two archbishops and 24 bishops of the Church of England , the holders of certain hereditary state offices ( Earl Marshal and Lord Great Chamberlain ), the 12 lord judges (Law Lords) and the life peers are represented. The latter represent the largest group with almost 600 representatives.

The main job of the House of Lords is to review the laws passed by the House of Commons. It can propose changes or new laws. It has the right to postpone new laws for a year. However, the number of vetoes is limited by customary law. The Lords are not allowed to block the state budget or laws that have already passed the second reading (Salisbury Convention) . The repeated use of the right of veto can be prevented by the House of Commons with the Parliament Act .

The House of Lords has also served as the Supreme Court of Appeal in civil matters for the whole of the United Kingdom and in criminal matters for England, Wales and Northern Ireland (Scotland has its own Supreme Court). However, only the concerned Lord Justice (Law Lords) with legal matters. The Constitutional Reform Act 2005 implemented the abolition of judicial functions and the establishment of a Supreme Court ( Supreme Court of the United Kingdom ) on October 1, 2009.

Contemporary developments

Decentralization (devolution)

Since the successful referendums in 1997, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have had their own regional parliaments and governments with a first minister as chairman, comparable to a prime minister in Germany or a governor in Austria. With the exception of Greater London, England has no state administration. The introduction of a parliament for the region of North East England clearly failed in a referendum. It is therefore questionable whether further parliaments will emerge in the near future.

In the elections of these state parliaments, proportional representation is sometimes used . The councils are nowhere near as powerful as the British Parliament. While the Scottish Parliament legislates to a certain extent, the Welsh Parliament can only decide how to use the budget provided by the central government. The UK Parliament may extend, limit or change the powers of regional parliaments at any time. The Northern Irish Parliament had been suspended several times in its history, most recently until May 7, 2007.

Thus, the UK can now be seen as a unitary state with a partially decentralized government. This contrasts with federal states , in which the rights of the subordinate parliaments and assemblies are precisely defined by the constitution and cannot be changed by a legislative decision of the higher parliament. On the other hand, there is a very good chance that the federal elements in Great Britain will be strengthened in the future. Tony Blair's devolution policy can ultimately develop as a self-imposed restriction on Labor's power, as devolution laws provide for a reduction in the number of Scottish MPs in the lower house and Scotland is traditionally a stronghold of the Labor Party.

politics

Political parties

There are three major parties in Great Britain, the Conservative Party , the Labor Party and the Liberal Democrats , which emerged from a merger of the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party . The Conservatives and Liberals alternated in power until 1922, and since then the Conservatives and the Labor Party. Although the Liberal Democrats regularly get around 20 percent of the vote, they are severely disadvantaged because of the majority vote.

In Northern Ireland, none of the three major parties has a significant following; the Liberal Democrats and the Labor Party do not even run candidates for the general election. Here politics is shaped by parties that are either for or against the union with Great Britain resp. for or against affiliation with the Republic of Ireland . The Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru are campaigning for independence from Scotland and Wales .

The penultimate lower house election took place on June 8, 2017 . The following results were achieved:

Other parties (10.2%, 58 seats, −15)

Other small parties have, in some cases, very strong regional roots and strive for the independence or autonomy of their region. It refers to:

A number of small parties are represented on various local councils, such as B. the Liberal Party , Mebyon Kernow, the Scottish Socialist Party, the Communist Left Alliance , the British National Party or Better Bedford .

The main parties in Northern Ireland are:

  • Democratic Unionist Party (radical, unionist)
  • Sinn Féin (Social Democrat, Irish Republican, with ties to the IRA )
  • Ulster Unionist Party (Conservative, Unionist)
  • Social Democratic and Labor Party (Social Democratic, Irish Republican)
  • Alliance Party (liberal, open to both denominations)
  • Progressive Unionist Party (center-left, unionist, with ties to loyalist paramilitary groups)
  • UK Unionist Party (small party that serves as the platform for unionist Robert McCartney)
  • Conservative Party (part of the UK Conservative Party)

There are a few independent politicians who do not belong to any party. This phenomenon usually only occurs when a member of parliament resigns from their party during the legislative period. Only four Independents have been elected as MPs since World War II:

  • Martin Bell was an MP for the constituency of Tatton from 1997 to 2001. He ran as an anti-corruption candidate against the conservative incumbent Neil Hamilton ; both the Labor Party and the Liberal Democrats had withdrawn their candidates to increase Bell's chances of being elected.
  • Richard Taylor was elected to the Wyre Forest constituency in 2001 and 2005. His group, Independent Kidderminster Hospital and Health Concern, was founded to prevent the partial closure of the hospital in Kidderminster.
  • Peter Law was elected in the Blaenau Gwent constituency in 2005. He had resigned from the Labor Party in protest because the list of possible candidates only contained the names of women.
  • Sylvia Hermon resigned from the Ulster Unionist Party in 2010 because of an alliance with the Conservative Party. She then managed to get back as an independent in both the 2010 and 2015 elections.

The elections on December 12, 2019 were again won by the Conservative Party.

Foreign and Security Policy

The foreign policy of the United Kingdom is of the good relations with the European Union and the " special relationship " (Engl .: Special relationship ) to the United States dominated, and the cooperation with the former colonial territories in the Commonwealth of Nations. The Queen is formally head of state in 16 of these 53 nations.

The United Kingdom's armed forces have nearly 200,000 men in three branches and about 190,000 reservists. Equipment, training and a centuries-old military tradition make the Armed Forces of the Crown one of the strongest armed forces on earth. With the equivalent of almost 60 billion US dollars, the British Army has the fifth largest military budget in the world.

literature

German
  • Bernd Becker: Politics in Great Britain. Introduction to the political system and balance sheet of Tony Blair's early years in office . Schöningh, Paderborn u. a. 2002; ISBN 3-8252-2373-6 .
  • Stephan Bröchler: “New Westminster Model” - Great Britain: a democracy (almost) with separation of powers ?, in: Sabine Kropp and Hans-Joachim Lauth (eds.), Separation of powers and democracy. Concepts and problems of “horizontal accountability” in an interregional comparison , Baden-Baden 2007, pp. 141–167.
  • Emil Huebner, Ursula Münch: The political system of Great Britain. An introduction . CH Beck, Munich 1998; ISBN 3-4064-2051-6 .
  • Thomas Krumm, Thomas Noetzel: The system of government in Great Britain. An introduction, Munich 2006.
  • Marcus Mey: Regionalism in Great Britain - viewed from a cultural studies perspective ; Berlin 2003
  • Thomas Saalfeld : Legislation in the British political system . In: Wolfgang Ismayr (Ed.): Legislation in Western Europe. EU countries and the European Union . VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2008, pp. 159–199.
  • Hans Setzer: Electoral system and party development in England. Ways to Democratize Institutions 1832-1948 . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt / Main 1973; ISBN 3-5180-0664-9 .
  • Roland Sturm: Politics in Great Britain, VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2009. ISBN 3-5311-4016-7 .
English
  • Ian Budge, David McKay, John Bartle, Ken Newton: The New British Politics . 4th edition. Pearson, Harlow 2007; ISBN 1-4058-2421-2 .
  • Patrick Dunleavy, Richard Heffernan, Philipp Cowley, Colin Hay: Developments in British Politics 8 . Palgrave, London 2006; ISBN 1-4039-4843-7 .
  • Mark Garnett, Philip Lynch: Exploring British Politics . Pearson, Harlow 2007; ISBN 0-5828-9431-X .
  • Bill Jones, Dennis Kavanagh, Michael Moran, Phlip Norton: Politics UK ; 6th edition. Pearson, Harlow 2007, ISBN 1-4058-2411-5 .
  • Robert Leach, Bill Coxall, Lynton Robins: British Politics . Palgrave, London 2006; ISBN 1-4039-4922-0 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Leach et al. a., 2006, p. 166.
  2. ↑ Leach et al. a., 2006, p. 169.
  3. ↑ Günther Döker, Malcolm Wirth: "constitution" of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Retrieved June 28, 2016.
  4. ↑ Secret papers show extent of senior royals' veto over bills , Guardian, January 15, 2013
  5. ^ Walter Bagehot: The English Constitution , Section III.2. Quote: To state the matter shortly, the sovereign has, under a constitutional monarchy such as ours, three rights — the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn. And a king of great sense and sagacity would want no others. He would find that his having no others would enable him to use these with singular effect.
  6. ↑ www.royal.uk/audiences
  7. ↑ above: Blair wins war backing amid revolt , in: BBC News , March 19, 2003. Accessed December 17, 2009.
  8. ↑ Mark Garnett, Philip Lynch, 2007, pp. 194ff.
  9. ^ Dolf Sternberger, Bernhard Vogel, Dieter Nohlen, Klaus Landfried (eds.): The election of parliaments and other state organs. Volume 1: Europe. De Gruyter, Berlin 1969, ISBN 978-3-11-001157-9 , p. 620.
  10. ^ A b c Mart Martin: The Almanac of Women and Minorities in World Politics. Westview Press Boul 396der, Colorado, 2000, p. 396.
  11. ↑ Caroline Daley, Melanie Nolan (Eds.): Suffrage and Beyond. International Feminist Perspectives. New York University Press New York 1994, pp. 349-350.
  12. ↑ Benjamin Isakhan, Stephen Stockwell: The Edinburgh Companion to the History of Democracy. Edinburgh University Press 2012, p. 343.
  13. ↑ June Hannam, Mitzi Auchterlonie, Katherine Holden: International Encyclopedia of Women's Suffrage. ABC-Clio, Santa Barbara, Denver, Oxford 2000, ISBN 1-57607-064-6 , p. 44.
  14. ^ Dolf Sternberger, Bernhard Vogel, Dieter Nohlen, Klaus Landfried (eds.): The election of parliaments and other state organs. Volume 1: Europe. De Gruyter, Berlin 1969, ISBN 978-3-11-001157-9 , p. 621.
  15. ↑ Krista Cowman: "Female Suffrage in Great Britain." In: Blanca Rodríguez-Ruiz, Ruth Rubio-Marín: The Struggle for Female Suffrage in Europe. Voting to Become Citizens. Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden and Boston 2012, ISBN 978-90-04-22425-4 , pp. 273-288, p. 273.
  16. ^ Cassell Bryan-Low, Jess Bravin: A UK Court Without the Wigs. New Supreme Bench, Patterned on America's, Stirs Debate ; The Wallstreet Journal, October 19, 2009. Telegraph: New Supreme Court opens with media barred ; Report from October 1, 2009, last accessed May 12, 2010.
  17. ↑ Results: Election ends in Hung Parliament. In: BBC News. Retrieved June 10, 2017 (English).
  18. ↑ MP Hermon quits Ulster Unionists . In: BBC . March 25, 2010 ( bbc.co.uk [accessed August 31, 2016]).
  19. ↑ Military expenditure by country worldwide 2015 | Statista. Retrieved April 11, 2017 .
  20. ↑ “Financial and Economic Data Relating to NATO Defense”, Press Release Communique PR / CP (2009) 009, NATO Public Diplomacy Division, February 19, 2009 (PDF, 128kB)
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