Colegiul Național “Silvania”

Atestat lingvistic

Political Life in Britain

Candidat, Coordonator,

Iancu Sălăjanu Ana Prof. Mezei

Daniela

Zalău, 2020
 Table of contents

I. Foreword
II. Britain’s political life shift from all-powerful kings to a
national parliament
III. The UK Political System
1. The three Arms of the State
2. The UK Parliament
3. The UK Gouovernment
IV. Devolved Government
1. The Welsh Assembly
2. The Northern Ireland Assembly
V. Political Parties
I. British Political Leaders Who Shaped History
1. Michael O’Dwyer (1864-1940)
2. Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
3. Mark Sykes (1879-1919)
4. Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013)

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 I. Foreword
To understand fully any country's political system, one needs to understand
something of its history. This is especially true of the United Kingdom because
its history has been very different from most other nations and, as a result, its
political system is very different, t from most other nations too.
The forms of the government which the citizens of a free nation have devised
for themselves are a key to the understanding of the nation. Like everything else
which has been built out of generations of hopes and trials and failures, each
political institution has its own personality.
In one way their system sounds very like ours, in that it is a democracy with a
House of Commons elected by all people. In another way their system sounds
very unlike ours, in that it is a monarchy with a House of Lords to which a man
must either be born or appointed .
The entire paper unfolds around The UK Political System, revealing, in its six
chapters, several aspects of its history, government and national parties.
The first chapter includes general informations about how history has shaped
the political system.
The second chapter is divided into three subchapters, that describe how the
actual system works while the third chapter highlightths the relationship with
North ern Ireland and Wales.
The last chapter comprises the variatyvariety of political parties in the country.

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 VI. Britain’s political life shift from all-powerful kings
to a national parliament
To understand fully any country's political system, one needs to
understand its history. This is especially true of the United
Kingdom because its history has been very different from most
other nations and, as a result, its political system is very
different from most other nations too.
Like its unwritten constitution, the British state evolved over
time. We probably need to start in 1066 when William the
Conqueror from Normandy invaded what we now call
England, defeated the Anglo-
Saxon King Harold and
established a Norman dynasty. The Normans were not satisfied
with conquering England and, over the next few centuries, tried
to conquer Ireland, Wales and Scotland. They succeeded with
the first two and failed with the last despite several wars over
the centuries.. By one of those ironical twists of history, when
Queen Elizabeth of England died in 1603, she was succeeded
by her cousin James VI, King of Scots who promptly
decamped from Edinburgh and settled in London as King
James I of England while keeping his Scots title and running
Scotland by remote control.

A century later the Scottish economic and political elite bankrupted themselves through
something called the Darien Scheme and agreed to a Union between England and Scotland to
make themselves solvent again and so Great
Britain with one Parliament based in London
came into being in 1707. The Irish parliament
was abolished in 1801 with Ireland returning
members to Westminster and the new political
entity was called the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland. The southern Irish,
being catholics, never reconciled themselves to being ruled by the English. Hence, after
rebelling in 1916, they gained independence in 1922.

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The northern Irish, being protestants did not want independence and so the United Kingdom
of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
was born.
Meanwhile, although the Normans
were the last to mount a successful
invasion of the country, there were
plenty of other plans to conquer the
nation, notably the Spanish under King
Philip II, the French under Napoleon, and the
Germans under Hitler. None
succeeededsucceeded. Furthermore, in
recent centuries, Britain has not had a revolution of the kind experienced by so many other
countries. Some might argue that the English Civil War from 1642 to 1651 was the nation's
revolution and, athoughalthough it was three and a half centuries ago, it did bring about a
major shift in power, but the main constitutional consequence, the abolition of the monarchy,
only lasted 11 years and the Restoration of the Monarchy has so far lasted 350 years ,although
it is now a very different monarchy. There was a time in British history which people call the
Glorious Revolution  but it was a very English revolution, in the sense that nobody died, if a
rather Dutch revolution in that it saw William of Orange take the throne. So the British have
never had anything equivalent to the American Revolution or the French Revolution, they
have not been colonised in a millennium but rather been the greatest colonisers in history, and
in neither of the two world wars were they
invaded or occupied.
SimplifingSimplifying British political history
very much, it has essentially been a struggle to
shift political power and accountability from the
all-powerful king, who claimed that he obtained
his right to rule from God, to a national
parliament that was increasingly representative
of ordinary people and accountable to ordinary
people. There have been many milestones along
this long and troubled road to full democracy.

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I. The UK Political System
1. The three Arms of the State
The executive power: the Ministers who run the country and propose new laws.
The legislature power: the elected body that passes new laws.
The judiciary power: the judges and the courts who ensure that everyone obeys the laws.

The British political system is headed by the British Monarchy, currently

Queen Elizabeth II, but they are mostly ceremonial. Even though,
the most important practical power is the choice of the Member of
Parliament to form a government which is granted to the leader of
the political party with the most seats in the House of Commons.
Although any remaining powers of the monarchy are largely
ceremonial, the Royal Family
must to be consulted about
legislation that might affect their
personal interests or its people.
The monarch is determined on the hereditary and
primogeniture principles. Under the terms of the Act of
Settlement of 1701, the monarch and the monarch's

spouse cannot be Catholics

because the UK monarch is
also the Head of the
Church of England.
The concept of “separation
of powers”, created by
Montesquieu, is not well
apply in the British
political system. All
Ministers in the
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government are members of the legislature. Some very senior judges sit in the upper house
of the parliament while the formal head of the judiciary is a senior minister.

2.. The UK Parliament

The UK Parliament in London is at the heart of the political system in Britain

and is the legislative body
for the UK and British
overseas territories.
Parliament has two
legislative parliamentary bodies – the House of Lords and the House of Commons.

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 This is the lower chamber but the one
with the most authority. The House of
Commons currently comprises 650
Members of Parliament or MPs (the
number varies slightly from time to time
to reflect
population change). This is
a large legislature by
international standards. Each member in the House of Commons represents a geographical
constituency. Every citizen aged 18 or over can vote once in the constituency in which they
live. Until now, in the UK (unlike many countries), there has not been fixed term
parliaments. A General Election - that is, a nationwide election for all 650 seats - was held
when the Prime Minister called it, but the election could be more than five years after the last
one and it was usually around four years after the last one.

This is the upper chamber but the one with

less authority. Its main roles are to revise
legislation and keep a check on
Government by scrutinising its activities.
There is no fixed number of members in
the House of Lords, but currently there are around 830 members - many more than in the
House of Commons. Ironically the size of the House of Lords continues to rise at the same
time as the House of Commons has legislated to reduce its size. Historically most members
of the House of Lords have been hereditary peers where he right to sit in the House has
passed through the family from generation to generation. The UK Parliament. The House of
Lords. Almost all the other members of today's House of Lords are life peers. This means
that they have been chosen by the Queen or King, on the advice of the Government, to sit in
the House for as long as they live, but afterwards no member of the royal family has the right
to sit in the House. Many are former senior politicians. Others are very distinguished figures
in fields such as education, health and social policy.

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26 members are Archbishops and Bishops of the Church of England. House of Lords reform
is unfinished business. The Parliament Act of 1911 first raised the prospect of an elected
upper house but it has still not happened.

3. The UK Gouvernment

All Government Ministers have to be a

member of either the House of Commons
(most of them) or the House of Lords (the
remainder of them) and every Government
Department will have at least one Minister
in the Lords, so that the Department can speak in
either House as necessary. The number of
Ministers varies from administration to
administration. Historically most British governments have been
composed of ministers from a single political party which had an overall majority of seats in
the House of Commons and the 'first-past-the-post' (FPTP) electoral system greatly facilitates
and indeed promotes this outcome. However, occasionally there have been minority
governments or coalition governments.

The Prime Minister

Constitutionally the head of state is the monarch who is a hereditary member of the Royal
Family. However, the monarch has very few formal powers and stays above party politics.
The most important person in the British political system is the Prime Minister. In theory, the
Prime Minister simply choses the ministers who run Government departments and chairs the
Cabinet – the collection of the most senior of those Ministers. In practice, however, the Prime
Minister is a very powerful figure and increasingly has been behaving much like a president

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 in other political systems, especially in the
area of foreign policy. The official
residence of the Prime
Minister is at 10
Downing Street.

Government Departments

The most important

political departments
are called:

The Treasury is
responsible for the raising of all taxes and the control of all
government expenditure plus the general management of the economy. The head of the
Treasury is called the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

The Home Office: It is responsible for criminal matters, policing, and immigration. The Head
of the Home Office is called the Home Secretary.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office: It is responsible for all our international
relationships, especially our membership of the European Union. The head of the Foreign
Office is called the Foreign Secretary.

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 Many
other

UK

Government

Departments are similar to those in other countries and cover subjects such as education,
health, transport, industry, and justice. However, there are also departments for Scotland,
Wales and Northern Ireland.

Government Ministers

All
Government
Departments are
run by Ministers
who are either
Members of the
House of
Commons or
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Members of the House of Lords. We have three classes of Minister: Secretary of State: This
is usually the head of a Department. Minister of State: This is a middle-ranking minister.
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State: This is the most junior class of minister. The Prime
Minster and all the Secretaries of State together comprise an executive body of government
called the Cabinet. The Cabinet meets usually once a week on Tuesday morning. Cabinet
meetings are confidential and all members are bound by any decision that it takes in a practice
called collective responsibility. Although all Ministers are appointed by the Prime Minster
and report to him, ultimately all Ministers are accountable to Parliament: About once a
month, they have to face questions in the House of Commons about the work of the
Department. Each government department has a special committee of the House of
Commons which watches the
work of that Department.

The civil service

Each Secretary of State is able to

appoint a couple of political
advisers – formally known as
Special Advisers – to serve him or
her. But Special Advisers are
simply advisers. They have no
line management responsibilities
in respect of the staff of the Department. Besides these tiny number of Special Advisers,
Government Departments are run by civil servants who are recruited in a totally open manner
and serve governments of any political parties. The independence and professionalism of the
British civil service are fundamental features of the British political system.

I. Devolved
Government

1. The Welsh Assembly

This came into operation in May

1999 and covers the 3M citizens

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of Wales. It has 60 members elected by a system of proportional representation known as the
mixed member system. As a result, 40 members
represent individual geographical constituencies
elected by the 'first past the post' system, with a
further 20 members returned from five additional
member regions, each electing four members. All
members are elected for four-year terms. It meets in the Senedd,
Cardiff. The Assembly has no tax-varying powers. The Welsh
Assembly, therefore, has less power than either the Scottish
Parliament or the Northern Ireland Assembly because Wales does
not have a separate legal system from England.

2. The Northern Ireland Assembly

The present version of the Assembly came into operation

in May 2007 and covers the 1.5M citizens of Northern Ireland. It has 108 members - six from
each of the 18 Westminster constituencies - elected by a system of proportional representation
known as the single transferable vote. It meets in the Parliament Building, Belfast. It has
legislative powers over those matters not reserved to the UK Parliament, but it has no tax-
raising powers. A First Minister and a Deputy First Minister are elected to lead the Executive
Committee of Ministers. As a result of the sectarian division in Northern Ireland, the two
must stand for election jointly and to be elected they must have cross-community support by
the parallel consent formula, which means that a majority of both the Members who have
designated themselves Nationalists and those who have designated themselves Unionists and
a majority of the whole Assembly, must vote in favour. The First Minister and Deputy First
Minister head the Executive Committee of Ministers and, acting jointly, determine the total
number of Ministers in the Executive.

II. Political Parties

Political parties began to form during the English civil wars of the 1640s and 1650s. First,
there were Royalists and Parliamentarians; then Tories and Whigs. Whereas the Whigs
wanted to curtail the power of the monarch, the Tories - today the Conservatives - were seen
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 as
the

patriotic party.

Today there are three major political parties in the British system of politics:

The Labour Party: the centre-Left party.

The Conservative Party (frequently called the Tories): the centre-Right party.

The Liberal Democrat Party (known as the Lib Dems): the centrist, libertarian party.

There are some much smaller UK parties like: the UK Independence Party and the Green
Party, and some parties which operate specifically in Scotland (the Scottish National Party),
Wales (Plaid Cymru) or Northern Ireland (such as Sinn Fein for the nationalists and the
Democratic Unionist Party for the loyalists). Each political party chooses its leader in a
different way.

By convention, the leader of the political party with the largest number of members in the
House of Commons becomes the Prime Minster (formally at the invitation of the Queen). The
ideological differences between the parties are less than they were with the parties adopting
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more 'pragmatic' positions on many issues. In the past, class was a major determinant of
voting intention in British politics, with most working class electors voting Labour and most
middle class electors voting Conservative. These days, class is much less important.

In the British political system, there is a broad consensus

between the major parties on:

the rule of law

the free market economy

the national health service

UK membership of European Union and NATO

The main differences between the political parties concern:

how to tackle poverty and inequality

the levels and forms of taxation

the extent of state intervention in the economy

VI. British Political Leaders Who Shaped History

1. Michael O’Dwyer (1864-1940)

Of all the people on this list, Michael O’Dwyer arguably shaped world
history for the worst reasons. He was a colonial administrator during the
British Raj, and until 1919 he was Lieutenant Governor of the
Punjab province. It was under his rule that in 1919 Reginald
Dyer, who had temporarily been appointed brigadier
general, gave the order to 50 troops to fire upon an unarmed
gathering of civilians, including children, in what became
known as the Amritsar massacre. It’s been estimated that over
1,000 people were killed. Despite his stated purpose being to
clear the crowd, Dyer instructed troops to “fire low” rather than

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firing their guns into the air, and to concentrate their fire at the exits where people were trying
to flee.
Although immediate responsibility for the massacre lay with Dyer, O’Dwyer is the political
figure indirectly responsible for the massacre, having declared martial law in the area. He
continued to defend Dyer even when the full details of the massacre became clear. He was
assassinated in 1940, and his assassin cited vengeance for the Amritsar massacre as a key
reason for his act. The lasting impact of the massacre was to provide an impetus to the
growing movement for Indian independence, in demonstrating the brutality of which the
colonial government was capable.

2. Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

In 2002, Winston Churchill topped the BBC’s poll of the greatest ever
Britons, beating Shakespeare, Newton and Darwin
to first place. Yet he remains a
controversial figure. Appointed First Lord
of the Admiralty during the First World
War, he left government after his failure in
the Gallipoli Campaign, which became one of
the Ottoman Empire’s greatest victories in WW1.
When returning to government and
becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer, his
decision to return the pound to the gold standard in 1925,
resulting in deflation, unemployment, and a 9-day strike by 1.7 million workers. In 1943,
Churchill refused to reduce exports or provide shipping to famine-struck Bengal at a time
when provisions to the UK were being increased – leading to the exacerbation of a famine
that killed over three million people.

But weighed against this damning record is Churchill’s relentless opposition to Nazism,
especially at the time in the early to mid thirties when the rise of Hitler was welcomed by
many of his parliamentary colleagues. In 1935, even Churchill hoped that Hitler could still
“go down in history as the man who restored honour and peace of mind to the great Germanic
nation.” But by 1938 he was determined that Nazism must be fought, and it was his triumph
in standing firm and defeating Hitler that means despite all his failings, he continues to be
celebrated.
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3. Mark Sykes (1879-1919)

Alongside François Georges-Picot, Mark

Sykes was one of the two authors of the
pivotal 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement, in
which Britain and France – with the
support of Russia – determined their
spheres of influence and control in the
Middle East should they prevail in the First World War. It
was an agreement that proved useful to both countries,
but its consequences are still being felt today.First, TE
Lawrence – better known as Lawrence of Arabia – had
promised the Arabs in the region an independent Arab
homeland in the area of Greater Syria if they rebelled
against the Ottoman Empire, but the Sykes-Picot agreement made
this impossible. Furthermore, the borders determined by the agreement had been drawn on to
a map with a ruler in straight lines – taking no account of ethnic or sectarian divisions.

The first consequence created resentment; the second made the resulting countries
challenging to govern. The outcome has been that the region Sykes and Picot divided up in
such a cavalier fashion has scarcely been at peace since their agreement was made.

4. Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013)

In the BBC poll of greatest Britons, Margaret Thatcher came

in at number 16. She was Britain’s first female Prime
Minister and the first elected female leader of a European
country, and her 11 years in office made her a highly
controversial figure. On the one hand, former Prime Minister
David Cameron claimed that, “she didn’t just lead our
country, she saved our country, and I believe she’ll go down
as the greatest British peacetime prime minister.” On the other hand, comedian Frankie Boyle
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 commented on the cost of her funeral, “for £3
million you could give everyone in Scotland a
shovel, and we could dig a hole so deep we could
hand her over to Satan in person.”

Her legacy was considerable and enduring. She

promoted free trade, competition and a smaller
state, went to war with Argentina over the Falklands,
significantly reduced the power of the unions in Britain, and
worked closely with US President Ronald Reagan.

Bibiography

REFERENCE / SOURCES:
Darlington, R. (2013, January 30)- A short guide to the British Political system.
www.greatbritishmag.co.uk
Tony Wright -British politics: A very short introduction
www.thecommonwealth.org
Duncan Brack -British Liberal Leaders

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