Chapter 7: The United Kingdom of Great Britian and Northern Ireland

United Kingdom

United Kingdom

is a “country of countries,” comprising the nations of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

Britain

is a unitary state, with political power firmly concentrated in London in a single political institution, the House of Commons, which is elected by British voters every five years (or less often in certain circumstances).

Geography

has a substantial impact on the historical development of the political culture of a nation of people.

Traditionalism

is behavior and ideas that support established customs and beliefs, rather than modern ones.

gradualism

a policy of gradual reform rather than sudden change or revolution.

Constitutionalism

can be defined as the doctrine that governs the legitimacy of government action, and it implies something far more important than the idea of legality that requires official conduct

House of Commons

was created in the fourteenth century in response to the emergence of a growing commercial class as towns in England developed.

English Civil War

(1642–1651), in which King Charles I attempted to govern and raise revenue without Parliament until he could no longer do so.

Glorious Revolution

James II fled the country, and the bloodless coup organized by Parliament

English Bill of Rights

which ensured the role that Parliament would be guaranteed to play in the British state, and further identified rights that could not be violated against British citizens by the monarch.

Labour Party

was formed in 1906 to represent the interests of the newly enfranchised working classes, and emerged as the chief challenger to the Tories by the end of World War I.

Beveridge Report

which recommended sweeping changes to guarantee at least a subsistence income to all British citizens no matter what.

National Health Service (NHS)

which provided all British citizens with the guarantee of medical care free of charge.

Tony Blair

recast the Labour Party as a center

Irish Republican Army (IRA)

used violence to agitate for secession from Britain, in the hopes of uniting Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland.

David Cameron

had promised a referendum on Britain’s membership in the European Union, referred to colloquially as Brexit, to appease the Euro Skeptical elements of the Conservative Party.

Civil society

is alive and well in Britain, almost completely unrestricted in its formation.

Elections

in Britain are generally regarded as completely free and fair, consistent with expectations of a liberal democracy, and British history has consistently progressed to expand access and participation for the average citizen.

plurality

is not necessarily a majority, since a majority is more than 50 percent.

EU parliamentary election rules

vary from nation to nation, but in Britain they were all conducted in a proportional representation (PR) format rather than through an SMD.

Scottish and Welsh

elect their members with a hybrid of SMD and PR party list systems, while the Northern Irish system uses a single transferrable vote, allowing voters to rank two preferred candidates.

Conservative Party

(nicknamed the “Tories”) is the more right

Noblesse oblige

which is the idea that the upper classes have a responsibility for the care and welfare of those in lower classes.

Thatcherite wing

which adheres to the economic philosophy of Margaret Thatcher, believing in the rolling back of the welfare state, reducing government controls and regulation, and expanding the role of markets.

Labour Party

began in 1906 as a means for members of the working class to advance workers’ rights in the political sphere.

Lib Dems

are regularly the biggest victim electorally of the single

quasi-autonomous non-governmental organizations (quangos)

which refers to publicly funded bodies that operate as integrated parts of the private sector.

Media

in Britain are open and free in their ability to investigate and report on the activities of the government at every level.

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)

were created by the state for the purpose of providing information to citizens.

Head of State

she does not hold any policymaking authority.

House of Commons

is the dominant political institution in Britain.

Prime Minister’s Questions or PMQs

where the opposition party, backbenchers, and minor party MPs can submit questions to be answered by the prime minister on a live television broadcast.

House of Lords

is known as the “upper house” of Parliament, but it certainly does not play the greater role in modern policymaking.

Lords Spiritual

meaning they acquired their place due to their ecclesiastical role in the Church of England.

Hereditary peers

meaning they inherited their title due to family lineage.

Life peers

as they are appointed by the prime minister (with the official appointment performed by the monarch) to serve for life, without passing the title to their heirs, usually as recognition of lifetime achievement and contribution to the United Kingdom.

Cabinet ministers

are generally subject to heavy influence from the bureaucrats they are supposed to oversee.

Common law systems

such as Britain’s place a tremendous importance on precedent and consistency in the interpretation of law, giving judges more interpretive power.

Code law systems

place more emphasis on the specific text of the legal code.

Parliamentary sovereignty

the idea that final authority should rest with decisions in the democratically elected House of Commons, rather than unelected officials in the judiciary.

Law Lords

who previously acted as the highest appellate court.

National Health Service

which centralized all health care provision into a single payer system with the government providing access to all citizens free of charge.

European Union

requires freedom of movement across state borders for European citizens to live, work, travel, and retire wherever they so please, but Britain was allowed to restrict immigration and travel into itself.

Good Friday Agreement

negotiated by Tony Blair, which led to the cessation of hostilities and the creation of the Northern Ireland Assembly, in addition to other devolved regional parliaments.