UK

• People

• Institution

  • House of Commons 

• Electoral Systems  

  • FPP (first past the post) ------> UK 

    • Vs

  • Proportional*

Unitary System of Gov

• Centralized power, within their parliament  

• Devolution - to a mayor of London or northern Ireland so on and so forth  (divide power between national and regional) 

  • Vs

• Federalism - extract that power 

  Parliamentary System of Gov

• Legislative controls 

Royalty 

• What is the relationship between the royal family and the government?

  • Brings a sense of tradition 

  • Voters are independent of the of the traditional royalty 

Parties 

• 2 parties that are dominant, there is a role from minor parties that might win a few roles in parliament

What if the UK used a proportional system?

Parts Of UK

• Engling 

• Scotland 

• Wales 

• Northern Ireland 

How did we get from a royal thing to this parliament thing?!?!

Gradualism-> Issues are handled sequentially (Not all at the same time) 

The slow pace of change ----> happens in the UK 

SET 1 -> The Growth of Parliamentary Power

• June 1215

  • Magna Carta was issued in 

• 1660

  • Restoration of the monarchy in England in 

• 1688

  • the country was invaded by a foreign army and its King fled 

  • Glorious Revolution in England 

• Parliament Act of 1911

  •  house of lords is stripped of their power

• 1912

  • Members of the commons officially receive public salaries 

• SET 2 -> The Growth of Democracy

• 1832

  • Reform Act- Gave men the ability to vote 

• 1867

  • Second Reform Act- double the size of the electorate 

• 1918

  • Increase in voting rights ( Age qualification…. So on so forth) 

• 1928

  • Universal Suffrage 

• ALL OF THIS IS VERY GRADUAL

• Voters are electing 

  • Elector of commons 

  • They are mostly voting for the party 

    • The person who belongs to the party is always secondary 

THE PARTY IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE PERSON REPRESENTING IT

650 voting districts ---> single-member districts - (one winner per district) 

326 districts = majority 

SINGLE MEMBER DISTRICTS IS THE WAY TO FPP

FUN FACT ;) You don't have to live in your district

Safe district - Voting districts used by parties to ensure their leadership candidates or positions in the House of Commons

Back bencher - Term for an up-and-coming politician 

Majority - Over 50% of the votes

 Vs

 plurality - Most votes this wins

Don’t need a majority if you have a plurality!!!

  IMPORTANT DATE 2015 - didn’t have enough vote to beat the majority 

If you don't get the votes

Option 1) Coalition ----> Time to try to get the votes or revote

Option 2) Bribe           

TONY BLAIR - First Labor Prime minister in forever basically 

• Monarchy 

  • Is not allowed to vote 

  • Gets to name the government 

• sometimes the monarchy and conventional don’t get along 

Life Peers (Did something great in society and King recognizes)

Hereditary Peers (Based on lineage)   

House of lords can try to influence the commons

HOUSE OF LORDS DELAY LEGISLATION

In this Reform party would be most in favor for changing the electoral system

FPP creates a two-party system

Public School -> Trained for public life. Boarding school. Trained to be a politician or a lawyer

SECTION 1

• Gary Lineker

  • English record for goals scored in World Cup matches

  •  October 2016 

    • group of child refugees from Calais landed in Britain, setting off a furious outcry by the country’s right-wing tabloids

    • tweet, “The treatment by some towards these young refugees is hideously racist and utterly heartless. What’s happening to our country?” transformed the athletic darling of the British public into an unlikely spokesman for the so-called Liberal Elite 

  • went further than the opposition Labour Party in defending a globalized Britain, 

  • correcting many of the wrongs that he saw being created by the harsh anti-immigration and anti-European rhetoric that has become mainstream in recent British political discourse.

  • use his celebrity to focus on something that he saw as an enormous problem: Brexit 

    • the vote that his countrymen took on June 23, 2016, to split from the European Union, was a mistake

  • soccer has showcased a growing racial and ethnic tolerance in British society and mirrored the spectacular rise in income inequality that has developed in recent decades 

    • soccer stands as a kind of parable for all that has gone right and wrong in Britain in the past 30 years, it may also point to the political opportunities and challenges of the future

• Britain 

  • the largest of the British Isles

    • group of islands off the northwest coast of Europe that encompasses England, Scotland, and Wales

  • second-largest island 

    • includes Northern Ireland and the independent Republic of Ireland. The term Great Britain includes England, Wales, and Scotland, but not Northern Ireland. 

    • Covering area of approximately 94,000 square miles 

    • roughly two-thirds the area of Japan, or approximately half the area of France 

    • 2017, British population was approx 64 million 

    • island off the shores of Europe 

    • for centuries less subject to invasion and conquest than its continental counterparts 

      • gave the country a sense of security 

      • separation also made many Britons feel that they are more apart from Europe than an intrinsic part of it

        • contributed to Britain’s decision to break from the European Union

• We use the term Britain as shorthand for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

• Political System

  • Parliamentary democracy, constitutional monarchy

• Regime History

  • Long constitutional history, origins subject to interpretation, usually dated from the seventeenth century or earlier

• Administrative Structure

  • Unitary state with fusion of powers. The UK Parliament has supreme legislative, executive, and judicial authority. Limited powers have been transferred to representative bodies in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland

• Executive

  • Prime minister (PM), answerable to House of Commons, subject to collective responsibility of the cabinet; leader of the party that holds the majority in Parliament

• Legislature

  • Bicameral. House of Commons elected by single-member plurality system. Main legislative powers: to pass laws, provide for finance, scrutinize public administration and government policy. House of Lords, unelected upper house: limited powers to delay enactment of legislation and to recommend revisions. Since 2009, the judicial functions of Parliament were transferred to the UK Supreme Court. Recent reforms eliminated voting rights for most hereditary peers.

• Judiciary

  • Independent, but with no power to judge the constitutionality of legislation or governmental conduct. UK Supreme Court, established in 2009, is the final court of appeal for all UK civil cases and criminal cases in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

• Party System

  • Two-party dominant, with regional variations. Principal parties: Labour and Conservative; a center party (Liberal Democrat); national parties in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland; and United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP).

•  British state unified several kingdoms

• Duke William of Normandy defeated the English in the Battle of Hastings in 1066

• Norman monarchy extended its authority throughout the British Isles (except for Scotland) 

• legislation unified England and Wales legally, politically, and administratively

• Scotland and England remained separate kingdoms until the Act of Union of 1707

• common Parliament of Great Britain 

• Royal control increased after 1066 but conduct of King John fueled opposition from feudal barons

• 1215, they forced him to consent to a series of concessions that protected feudal landowners from abuses of royal power

• restrictions were embodied in the Magna Carta historic statement of the rights of a political community against the monarchical state

• 1236, the term Parliament was first used officially for the gathering of feudal barons summoned by the king whenever he required their consent to special taxes

• fifteenth century, Parliament gained the right to make law 

• replaced the two separate parliaments of Scotland and of England and Wales

• sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Britain was embroiled in a complex interplay of religious conflicts, national rivalries, and struggles between rulers and Parliament

• conflicts erupted in the civil wars of the 1640s, and forced the removal of James II in 1688. 

• last successful revolution in British history.

• “Glorious Revolution” of 1688 resolved long-standing religious conflict

•  replacement of the Roman Catholic James II by the Protestant William and Mary ensured dominance of the Church of England (Anglican Church)

• the Church of England remains the established (official) church 

• 1700, a basic form of parliamentary democracy had emerged.

• The Industrial Revolution

•  took place from the mid-eighteenth century onward

•  rapid expansion of manufacturing production and technological innovation

• led to vast social and economic changes and created pressures to make the country more democratic 

• dominated the international order

• gradually improving standard of living throughout the English population in general, industrialization disrupted lives and shattered old ways of life

• field laborers lost their jobs, and small landholders were squeezed off the land

• Britain relied on imported raw materials

• 1800, it sold the vast majority of finished goods overseas 

• Growth depended on foreign markets, NOT domestic consumption 

• export orientation made economic growth happen mch faster than a domestic orientation would have allowed

• Backed by the British navy, international trade made England the dominant military and economic world power 

• Britain led the alliance that toppled Napoleon in the early nineteenth century enabling to maintain its dominant position in the world

• 1870 British trade represented nearly one-quarter of the world total

•  Queen Victoria ruled an empire that included 25 percent of the world’s population, exercising direct colonial rule over 50 countries, including India and Nigeria 

• Britain dominated an extensive economic empire

• worldwide network of independent states, including China, Iran, and Brazil. Britain ruled as a hegemonic power

• controlling alliances and shaping domestic political developments in countries throughout the world

• Industrial Revolution shifted economic power from landowners to businessmen and industrialists

• The first important step toward democratization in the late 1820s

• propertied classes and increasing popular agitation pressed Parliament to expand the right to vote 

• Parliament under considerable pressure, the Reform Act of 1832 extended the vote to a section of the (male) middle class. 

• Before 1832, less than 5 percent of the adult population could vote but, it grew to only about 7 percent

• The Representation of the People Act of 1867

•  increased the electorate to 16 percent 

• left cities significantly underrepresented

•  The Franchise Act of 1884 

• nearly doubled the electorate 

• The Representation of the People Act of 1918 

• included nearly all adult men and women over age thirty. 

• State involvement in the economy increased significantly during World War I 

• state took control of numerous industries, including railways, mining, and shipping, and channeled resources into war production

• After World War I

• the state fragmented the trade union movement and resisted demands for workers’ control over production 

• government manipulation of the economy openly contradicted the policy of laissez-faire

•  minimal government interference in the operation of economic markets

• Tensions between free-market principles and interventionist practices deepened with the Great Depression

• the war transformed the role of the state and led to a period of unusual political harmony.

• collectivism describes the consensus in politics after World War II, when most Britons and all the major political parties agreed that governments should work to narrow the gap between rich and poor and provide for basic necessities through public education, national health care, and other policies of the welfare state 

• a set of policies designed to provide health care, pensions, unemployment benefits, and assistance to the poor.

•  accepted state responsibility for economic growth and full employment. British people came to expect that the state should be responsible for economic growth and full employment

• Tony Blair 

• Labour Party was determined to modernize itself

• party was rebranded as “New Labour” 

• British sociologist Anthony Giddens characterized as a “third-way” alternative to Thatcherism

• Conservative politics of the country under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and the collectivism of traditional Labour 

• rejected interest-based politics, in which unions and working people tended to vote for Labour and businesspeople and the more prosperous voted for the Conservatives

• Labour won in 1997 with support from across the socioeconomic spectrum

• Tony Blair and Gordon Brown formed an alliance as rising stars in the Labour Party

• pushed the party to modernize and expand its political base well beyond its heritage as a labor party,

• Brown became shadow chancellor under John Major 

• the opposition party’s spokesman on the economy

• after Labour took office, Blair and Brown became rivals rather than partners within the party

• Blair won a third electoral victory in May 2005

• due mainly to his support for the war in Iraq, his parliamentary majority was slashed by nearly 100 seats

• June 2007

• Blair resigned and Gordon Brown became prime minister 

• Brown was not a nimble campaigner and was never able to get out from under the shadow cast by New Labour’s role in the war in Iraq

• Brown—or any prime minister— couldn’t reduce the fear of sudden terrorist attacks that ordinary people in Britain have felt ever since bombs were set off in the London transport system on July 7, 2005 

• referred to as “7/7” in the United Kingdom

• many of the core principles of New Labour’s approach have become widely shared across much of the political spectrum

• David Cameron 

• took the party in a familiar mainstream direction, appealing directly to youth for political support and championing modernization and pragmatism

• Reaching out to youth and promoting agendas such as climate change, citizen activism, and promises to reduce both the global development gap and the gap between rich and poor in the United Kingdom

• May 2010 election 

• a “hung parliament”

• an outcome after a general election when no party can control a majority of the seats in Parliament by itself 

• The coalition government

• characterized its governing objective as a blending of the Conservative belief in the dynamism of free markets with the Liberal Democrat commitment to decentralization

• Big Society argued for wide-ranging initiatives to empower ordinary citizens to take control over their lives and shift the balance of power downward from the state to communities and individual citizens 

• Parents should be given the opportunity to start their own schools; citizens should be encouraged to take over the administration of post offices, to elect police commissioners, and to recall Members of Parliament (MPs) who violate the public trust.

• “Big Idea”

• the catchphrase and rebranding of politics apparently demanded of all new governments in the United Kingdom.

• Cameron’s Big Society never caught on as a defining vision, nor was it able to successfully drive the agenda of the coalition government

• 2014

• Britain narrowly fended off a Scottish referendum, which would have resulted in the breakup of Britain.

• The United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) 

• emerged on the scene under the leadership of Nigel Farage, a charismatic political figure who led a movement to withdraw from the European Union

• To this day the Labour Party has not been able to overcome the lingering aftereffects of Blair’s disastrous decision to support the Anglo-American war in Iraq, nor has the uninspiring Jeremy Corbyn, who has led the party since 2015, been able to make any headway in challenging the growing dominance of the right-wing populist parties 

• June 23, 2016

• Vote to determine whether the United Kingdom would remain in the European Union. 

• vote was 52 percent to 48 percent in favor of exiting, with a turnout of nearly 72 percent

• more than 30 million people voted

• result was a radical destabilization of British politics, as it became immediately clear that neither Britain’s leaders nor the general public had any idea what their vote actually meant, or what it would accomplish

• The decision to leave, led by Conservative MP Boris Johnson, led to the resignation of Prime Minister David Cameron 

• Conservative leader Theresa May took office as the second female prime minister in the country’s history 

• June 2017

• Election held by May hoping to increase her majority in Parliament 

• gradual decolonization

• Britain fell to second-tier status among the world’s nations 

• empire shrank between the two world warsas the so-called white dominions of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand gained independence

• In Britain’s Asian, Middle Eastern, and African colonies, pressure for political reforms that would lead to independence deepened during World War II and afterward 

• Beginning with the formal independence of India and Pakistan in 1947, an enormous empire dissolved in less than 20 years

• 1997 Britain returned the commercially vibrant crown colony of Hong Kong to China

• process of decolonization ended Britain’s position as a dominant player in world politicsl

• Theresa May 

• on July 13, without either a general election or a full-blown Tory leadership contest, May assumed the position 

• Britain’s home secretary for 6 years since the creation of the coalition government in 2010

• The Home Secretary 

• the British cabinet position in charge of domestic affairs, including security and terrorism

• One of her top priorities has been making a success of Brexit and navigating the complex waters of British-European relationships that follow in its wake

• she was a “Remain” supporter during the campaign

• she has had no choice going forward but to manage the aftershocks of the decision as effectively as possible, both at home and abroad 

• looked like a sure bet to remain as prime minister for the forseeable future and to ably lead Britain out of the EU

• Britain sits as a permanent member of the United Nations (UN) Security Council and is also a leading member of the world’s select club of nuclear powers

• Britain’s special relationship with the United States

• Brexit vote will inevitably have a strong impact on Britain’s economic future

• Brexit supporters argue that as a result of the break, Britain will be able to forge closer trade links with countries outside the European Union and benefit from a reduction in the red tape generated in the EU capital of Brussels

• 2017 report

• the World Economic Forum noted that while the United Kingdom is currently one of the most competitive economies in the world, its future strength is uncertain: “Although the process and the conditions of Brexit are still unknown, it is likely to have a negative impact on the United Kingdom’s competitiveness through goods and financial markets, as well as market size and, potentially, innovation.”

• Britain was the first nation to industrialize

• For much of the nineteenth century British Empire was world’s dominant power

• Britain was the first nation to develop an effective parliamentary democracy.

• Westminster model 

• emphasizes that democracy rests on the supreme authority of a legislature—in Britain’s case, the Parliament. 

• Britain has long served as a model of gradual and peaceful evolution of democratic government in a world where transitions to democracy are often turbulent, interrupted, and uncertain 

SECTION 2

• neoliberalism was a key feature of Tony Blair’s and Gordon Brown’s New Labour governments

• policies aimed to promote free competition, to interfere with entrepreneurs and managers as little as possible, and to create a business-friendly environment to attract foreign investment and spur innovation 

• In the 1980s

• economic growth in Britain was low and unemployment high

• was routinely called the “sick man of Europe.” 

• the global downturn of fall 2008 

• transition in 2010 from a New Labour to a Conservative–Liberal government

• Neoliberalism drove the economic policy of New Labour, and as a result, the economic performance of the UK economy was characterized by a patchwork neoliberal approach 

• Two central dimensions, economic management and social policy, captured the new role of the state and revealed its limitations

• The Labour Party, under Corbyn’s leadership, has strongly criticized the government’s austerity policies, proposing instead to deliver much-needed infrastructure that would expand economic activity and raise tax revenue

• the British state intervenes in economic life, 

• the state has generally limited its role to broad policy instruments that influence the general economy (macroeconomic policy)

• After World War II

• unity inspired by shared suffering during the war and the need to rebuild the country crystallized in the collectivist consensus

• state broadened and deepened its responsibilities for the economy

• state assumed direct ownership of key industries

• accepted the responsibility to secure low levels of unemployment 

• By the 1970s 

• Britain was suffering economically, with no growth and growing political discontent

• Investments declined, and trade union agitation increased

• Industrial unrest dramatized Labour’s inability to manage the trade unions 

• Strikes by truckers disrupted fuel supplie 

• Gravediggers refused to bury the dead. Thatcher came to power a few months later, in May 1979

• “the winter of discontent”

•  destroyed Britain’s collectivist consensus and discredited the Keynesian welfare state

• Thatcher and John Major, her successor, rejected Keynesianism 

• Monetarism 

• assumed that there is a natural rate of unemployment that is determined by the labor market itself 

• Monetarism reflected a radical change from the postwar consensus regarding economic management

• Not only was active government intervention considered unnecessary, it was seen as undesirable and destabilizing.

• Gordon Brown insisted on establishing a sound economy

• determined to reassure international markets that the British economy was built on a platform of stabilityand that the Labour government could be counted on to run a tight financial ship

•  Brown used economic growth to increase spending rather than cut taxes.

• claimed that since capital is international, mobile, and not subject to control, industrial policy and planning are futile if they focus on the domestic economy alone, but the government should improve the quality of labor through education and training, maintain labor market flexibility, and attract investment to Britain

• Strict control of inflation and tough limits on public expenditure promote both employment and investment opportunities

• Economic policy should increase competitive strength through government–business partnerships and efforts to improve the skill of the workforce, and therefore the competitiveness of British industry

• centerpiece of the coalition government’s approach to economic policy

• commitment to deficit reduction as the necessary precondition for stabilizing the economy

• engaged in a comprehensive spending review and a predictably harsh retrospective critique of the state of the economy that it inherited from New Labour

• Ed Miliband, the leader of the Labour Party, was working hard to establish his credibility on economic affairs 

• Conservatives were blaming Labour for the country’s high debt and deficits, denying that Labour’s plans would bring the deficits under control

• By all accounts, Theresa May has the fullest in-box of any newly installed prime minister in recent history.

• managing the politics of austerity while securing sustainable economic growth are at the top of her agenda.

• United Kingdom

• welfare state provisions have interfered relatively little in the workings of the market, and policymakers do not see the reduction of group inequalities as the proper goal of the welfare state 

• there has been considerable continuity across the period of postwar consensus despite differences in perspectives on the welfare state

• New Labour attempted to link social expenditures to improving skills, making everyone a stakeholder in society, and tried hard—with only limited success—to turn social policy into an instrument for improving education, skills, and competitiveness

• UN Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights expressed “serious concerns” about growing inequality in the United Kingdom following 6 years of austerity policies under the Conservative government and the coalition that preceded it

• UK welfare state offers few comprehensive services, and the policies are not very generous

• The lone exception is the National Health Service (NHS), which provides comprehensive and universal medical care 

• New Labour rejected both the cutbacks in social provisions of Conservative governments, which they characterized as mean-spirited, and the egalitarian traditions of Britain’s collectivist era, which emphasized entitlements (or what in the United States is called “tax-and-spend liberalism”)

•  New Labour focused its social policy on training and broader social investment as a more positive third-way alternative.

• emphasized efficiencies and attempted to break welfare dependency 

• effort to identify comprehensive solutions to society’s ills and reduce the tendency of government to let marginalized individuals fall by the wayside captures the third-way orientation of the New Labour project

• UNICEF’s report cards suggest that while the United Kingdom has made progress in addressing overall levels of child well-being since being ranked at the bottom of the chart in the early 2000s, its performance can be summed up as “could do better” 

• xamines four domains of child well-being—income, education, health, and life satisfaction

• United Kingdom is ranked 14th out of 35 countries (in the middle of the pack in three of the four child well-being domains: 25th out of 37 on educational achievement gaps, 19th out of 35 on health gaps, and 20th out of 35 on life satisfaction gaps) 

• comparatively strong role that social security benefits have played in protecting the incomes of many families with children in the United Kingdom

• Ethnic minorities disproportionately suffer diminished opportunity in the United Kingdom 

• members of ethnic minority groups in Britain are increasingly native-born.

• Ethnic minorities, particularly young men, are subject to unequal treatment by the police and considerable physical harassment by citizens

• poor rates of economic success reinforce the sense of isolation and distinct collective identities, although in recent years the number of ethnic minority workers in the British workforce has soared to record levels.

• DWP statistics show that people from ethnic minority groups are more likely to be employed in accommodation and food services, wholesale and retail trade, transportation and storage, and human health and social work

• They are less likely to be employed in the manufacturing, construction, and education sectors

• The United Kingdom’s stubbornly wide gender pay gap is well known.

• still an 18.1 percent difference in average pay between men and women 

• Despite the legal recognition of equality between women and men and the growing empowerment of women in nearly all spheres of social and political life in the United Kingdom—witness the recent election of Theresa May as Prime Minister—readily observable differences in the treatment and experiences of women and men persist

• Where family dynamics and cultural habits intersect, however, gender divisions remain strong

• Although women are far more likely to shoulder the additional burdens of childcare, eldercare, and housework, recent UK policy has favorably affected women’s role 

• In 2013, the government implemented policies to provide early learning facilities for the 20 percent most disadvantaged 2-year-olds, and in 2014, it introduced early learning facilities for roughly 40 percent of all 2-year-olds

• extreme weather events have provoked intense debate about environmental issues

• In 2013–2014

• Britons suffered through the worst storms and tidal surges in 60 years on the North Sea coastline, with floods ruining Christmas and sparking intensified (and increasingly politicized and hostile) 

• debate within the government and the scientific community about the role played by climate change in environmental disasters 

• January 2017

• London was put on “very high” pollution alert for the first time ever

• cold air and a stationary air pattern failed to clear the toxic air caused by diesel traffic and the high use of open fires. 

• air pollution has led London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, to announce a range of environmental policies for the capital, including expanding central London’s low-emission zone, imposing a toxicity charge of $12/day for high-polluting vehicles, and introducing environmentally friendly cars and low-emission bus zones

• British public has expressed increasing concern about a variety of environmental issues 

• acid rain, fracking, and the safety of the food supply

• Jeremy Corbyn pushed hard for a commitment to generate 65 percent of Britain’s electricity from renewable resources by 2030, but it is not clear whether his specific proposals to make that target are in fact feasible

• Margaret Thatcher 

• once led the world on environmental policy, particularly regarding the restoration of the ozone layer 

• same cannot be said of Theresa May’s approach to the current climate crisis

• Her promise to ratify the Paris Agreement trailed the announcements of China and the United States, and she still hedges her bets on the all-important question of timing 

• Since coming to power, her policies have failed to show much corresponding leadership on green issues

• Foreign direct investment (FDI) 

• favors national systems, like those of Britain (and the United States), that rely mostly on private, contractual, and market-driven arrangements. Because of low costs, a business-friendly political climate, government-sponsored financial incentives, reduced trade union power, and a large pool of potential nonunionized recruits, the United Kingdom is a highly regarded location in Europe for FDI 

• Almost 1,600 new jobs a week were created by FDI between 2015 and 2016

• investments originated from a record 79 countries, and it became the top European destination for projects from emerging markets 

• Projects from Latin America rose by 240 percent, and those from Central and Eastern Europe surged by 131 percent.

• The United Kingdom scores well in international comparisons of microeconomic competitiveness and growth competitiveness 

• achieved significant competitive success in particular pockets of science-based, high-technology industries 

• he picture of UK global competitiveness was clouded by weak industrial performance

• Gordon Brown’s Britain preached a globalization-friendly model of flexible labor markets throughout the European Union, and its success in boosting Britain’s economic performance in comparison with the rest of Europe won some reluctant admirers. However, under New Labour, Britain achieved an enviable record of growth, low inflation, and low unemployment, in part because of its sustained commitment to attract foreign investment and to assume an outward-looking competitive profile

• international market-driven orientation of the British economy, combined with a hands-off antiregulatory approach, exposed Britons to enormous risk and a very severe downturn, with reverberating political consequences, when the global recession engulfed Britain in 2008

• Until the Great Recession, the British economy exhibited an enviable growth model, fueled by ready access to consumer credit and by the simultaneous “fool’s paradise” of low interest rates, inflated housing values, low inflation, and highly questionable lending practices

• Under the conditions that the coalition government faced from its first days in office, its options for governing the economy were very limited

• Left on its own to forge new trade agreements with Europe and the United States, Britain is in uncharted global economic waters 

SECTION 3

• The British constitution is notable for two features 

  • form 

  • age 

• Britain lacks a formal written constitution in the usual sense 

  • There is no single unified and authoritative text like the U.S. Constitution that has special status above ordinary law and can be amended only by special procedures

• British constitution is a combination of 

  • statutory law 

    • mainly acts of Parliament 

  • common law 

  • Convention

  • authoritative interpretations 

• it is often said that Britain has an unwritten constitution 

  • This is not accurate

• Authoritative legal treatises are written as well as the much more significant acts of Parliament that define crucial elements of the political system

• These acts define 

  • the powers of Parliament and its relationship with the monarchy

  • the rights governing the relationship between state and citizen 

  • the relationship of constituent nations to the United Kingdom

  • the relationship of the United Kingdom to the European Union

  • many other rights and legal arrangements.

• “What distinguishes the British constitution from others is not that it is unwritten, but rather that it is partly written and uncodified”.

• conventions and acts of Parliament with constitutional implications began 

  • at least as early as the seventeenth century

  • notably with the Bill of Rights of 1689

  • helped define the relationship between the monarchy and Parliament

• “Britain’s constitution presents a paradox…we live in a modern world but inhabit a pre-modern, indeed, ancient, constitution.”

• Constitutional authorities 

  • accepted the structure and principles of many areas of government for so long that the very appeal to convention has cultural force

  • widely agreed-on rules of conduct, rather than law or U.S.-style checks and balances, set the limits of governmental power

• Absolute principles of government are few, but those that exist are fundamental to the organization of the state 

  • central to 

  • Governance

  • Policymaking

  • Patterns of representation

• even the most time-encrusted principles of Britain’s ancient constitutional traditions are subject to quick and potentially radical changes.

• Parliamentary Sovereignty 

  • can make or overturn any law

•  executive, the judiciary, and the throne

  • have no authority to restrict, veto, or otherwise overturn parliamentary action

• a classic parliamentary democracy

  • the prime minister is answerable to the House of Commons 

  • elected element of Parliament

  • may be dismissed by it 

• by joining the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1973 (now known as the European Union)

  • parliament accepted significant limitations on its power to act

  • acknowledged that European law had force in the United Kingdom

  • without requiring parliamentary assent

  • European law overrode British law

•  prompted the Brexit referendum

  • the wish to escape the economic and legal encumbrances imposed by Britain’s participation in the European Union

• unitary state

  • no powers are reserved constitutionally for subcentral units of government in the United Kingdom

• Labour government of Tony Blair

  • introduced a far-reaching program of constitutional reform 

  • created a quasi-federal system

  • Specified powers have been delegated (the British prefer to say devolved) to legislative bodies in Scotland and Wales, and to Northern Ireland as well

  • long-standing conflict there seems settled

• On September 18, 2014

  • the people of Scotland narrowly voted to remain as part of the United Kingdom

  • issues that prompted the referendum for Scottish independence unresolved 

  • those who voted for Scottish independence expressed strong disagreements with both major parties in the United Kingdom on a range of economic and political issues

• fusion of powers 

  • Parliament is the supreme legislative, executive, and judicial authority and includes the monarch, as well as the House of Commons and the House of Lords

  • The fusion of legislature and executive is also expressed in the function and personnel of the cabine. 

• U.S. presidents can direct or ignore their cabinets, but the British cabinet bears enormous constitutional responsibility

• Cabinet

  • shapes, directs, and takes responsibility for the government 

  • may at critical junctures be observed more in principle than in practice

• Particularly with strong prime ministers, such as Thatcher and Blair,can rally—or bully—the cabinet 

  • power gravitates to the prime minister

• constitutional monarchy

• The Crown 

  • passes by hereditary succession 

  • government or state officials exercise nearly all powers of the Crown

• Parliamentary sovereignty, parliamentary democracy, and cabinet government form the core of the British or Westminster model of government.

• cabinet government 

• emphasizes the key functions that the cabinet exercises

• responsibility for policymaking

• supreme control of government

• coordination of all government departments

• does not capture the full range of executive institutions/the scale and complexity of operations/the realities of a system in which power invariably flows upward to the prime minister executive reaches well beyond the cabinet

• extends from ministries (departments) and ministers to the civil service in one direction to Parliament in the other direction

• After general election

• The Crown invites the leader of the party that emerges from the election with control of a majority of seats in the House of Commons to form a government and serve as prime minister

• prime minister selects approximately two dozen ministers for the cabinet

• Senior cabinet

•  posts include the Foreign Office (equivalent to the U.S. secretary of state) 

• the Home Office (ministry of justice or attorney general)

•  chancellor of the exchequer (finance minister)

• Unlike the French Constitution, which prohibits a cabinet minister from serving in the legislature, British constitutional tradition requires overlapping membership between Parliament and cabinet

• member of the cabinet must be either a member of the House of Commons or, less often, a member of the House of Lords

• The cabinet room at 10 Downing Street 

• place of intrigue as well as deliberation

• From prime minister’s viewpoint

• cabinet may appear as loyal followers or as ideological combatants

• potential challengers for party leadership, and parochial advocates for pet programs that run counter to the overall objectives of the government

• convention of collective responsibility normally unifies the cabinet

• prime minister must gain the support of a majority of the cabinet for a range of significant decisions

• the budget and the legislative program.

• only other constitutionally mandated mechanism for checking the prime minister is the government’s defeat on a vote of no confidence in the House of Commons 

• defeat of a government by Parliament is rare and politically dangerous, so the cabinet remains the only routine check on the prime minister

• Margaret Thatcher 

• often attempted to galvanize loyalists in the cabinet and either marginalize or expel detractors

• her treatment of the cabinet helped inspire the movement to unseat her as party leader

• Her successor, John Major, returned to a more consultative approach

• Tony Blair

• narrowed the scope of collective responsibility

• The prime minister, a few key cabinet members, and a handful of advisers made many important policy decisions in small, unofficial gatherings

• The decision to go to war in Iraq underscored the cabinet’s weakened capacity to exercise constitutional checks and balances

• Blair preferred to coordinate strategically important policy areas through highly politicized special units in the Cabinet Office

• David Cameron

• the role of the cabinet returned to its more traditional role of consultation and advice

• Theresa May cabinet

• unlike Cameron, she is not operating in a coalition government 

• has the united support of the Conservative Party. 

• cabinet operates within a broader cabinet system/core executive 

• prime minister controls many of the levers of power in the core executive

• prime minister office helps 

• develop policy

• coordinates operations

• and functions as a liaison with the media, the party, interest groups, and Parliament

• Cabinet committees and official committees

• supplement the work of the cabin

• The treasury plays an important coordinating role through its budgetary control. The Cabinet Office supports day-to-day operations 

• Leaders in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the whips, smooth the passage of legislation sponsored by the government

• the government always has a working majority; the outcome of a vote is seldom in doubt.

• the cabinet system and the core executive concentrate power at the top London does not suffer from Washington-style gridlock

• The risk in the United Kingdom is the opposite—excessive concentration of power by a prime minister who is prepared to manipulate cabinet and flout the conventions of collective responsibility

• Policymaking may appear to be increasingly concentrated in the prime minister’s hands viewed from Whitehall the executive may appear to be dominated by its vast administrative agencies

• range and complexity of state policy making mean that the cabinet’s authority must be shared with a vast set of unelected officials 

• Government departments directed by members of the cabinet

• Ministers are assisted by a very senior career civil servant

• permanent secretary: has chief administrative responsibility for running a department

• Other senior civil servants (including deputy secretaries and undersecretaries)

•  assist the permanent secretaries

• the minister reaches into his or her department to appoint a principal private secretary, an up-and-coming civil servant who assists the minister as gatekeeper and liaison with senior civil servants

• nearly all legislation introduced on behalf of the government and presented as the policy directive of a ministry

• civil servants in Britain do much of the work of conceptualizing and refining legislation

• Civil servants, more than ministers, assume operational duties.

• the civil service has been downsized and given a new corporate structure

• Few at the top of these agencies are traditional career civil servants

• growing concern that the increasing importance of special advisers is eroding the impartiality of civil servants

• “dodgy dossier” of September 2002

• special advisers played critical roles in making the case

• alleging that the threat of weapons of mass destruction justified regime change in Iraq.

• Political scientists

• often discuss how the design of political institutions affects political outcomes

• the distinction between presidential systems, such as that of the United States, and parliamentary systems, such as that of the United Kingdom

• presidential system

• the legislature and executive are independent

• Both the legislature and the chief executive have their own fixed schedules for election and their own political mandates

• Legislators and presidents have been elected independent of each other

• different constituencies and often have different political agendas 

• Each may gain credibility and support by opposing the other

• he agenda and the authority of the president are often compromised when the president and the majority of legislators are from different parties

• Stalemates on key items of legislation are common

• Between presidential elections, it is very difficult to remove a president, even one who has very little popular support or is suspected of acting unconstitutionally

• It requires impeachment, which, in turn, requires a finding of extraordinary misconduct and a strong majority vote in the legislature.

• Prime ministers

• must enjoy the support of the majority of the legislature to achieve office

• must preserve that support to stay in office 

• prime ministers and their governments can fall if they lose a vote of no confidence in the legislature

• the timing of elections is typically not fixed

• the prime minister can call for a new election in an effort to win a new mandate and a deeper majority in Parliament 

• When in trouble, a prime minister can be sent packing in an instant through a vote of no confidence.

• because the legislators and prime minister sink or swim together, they tend to cooperate and work through differences 

• presidential 

• because the legislature and executive are mutually independent—one can swim, while the other sinks—the tendency for finger-pointing and stalemate is much greater.

• Powerful prime ministers such as Thatcher and Blair were routinely criticized for being too presidential

• in Britain, the threat that a prime minister faces of losing office through a vote of no confidence has all but disappeared—it has happened only once in more than 80 years

• Those involved in security and law enforcement have enjoyed a rare measure of popular support in Britain. Constitutional tradition and professionalism distance the British police and military from politics.

• Military

• British policy since the Cold War remains focused on a gradually redefined set of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) commitments

• ranked among the top five military powers in the world

• 1999 

• the United Kingdom strongly backed NATO’s Kosovo campaign and pressed for ground troops

• According to Blair, global interdependence rendered isolationism obsolete and inspired a commitment to a new ethical dimension in foreign policy.

• Throughout the war in Iraq and its bloody aftermath, Blair sought to characterize Iraq as an extension of Kosovo

• the use of the military in international conflicts generated little opposition

• the Iraq war was the exception that proved the rule that the United Kingdom could play an important role in the world of states, including the use of force, when justified, without losing public support

• 2011

• the Cameron government played a leading role in the international effort

•  endorsed by the UN Security Council, to protect civilians and enhance the cause of rebels fighting the regime of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi

• enjoyed strong support for his decision to participate in the international coalition in the early stages

• August 2013

• despite strong pressure from the United States and Cameron’s best efforts, Parliament refused to authorize the use of force to quell the violence in Syria

• recently, however, Britain has joined the international coalition to defeat ISIS in Syria and to provide humanitarian aid to the region

• police have traditionally operated as independent local forces throughout the country

• Since 1980s

• police have witnessed growth in government control, centralization, and level of political use

• coal miners’ strike of 1984–1985

• the police operated to an unprecedented—and perhaps unlawful—degree as a national force coordinated through Scotland Yard (London police headquarters)

• menaced strikers and hindered miners from participating in strike support activities

• This partisan use of the police in an industrial dispute flew in the face of constitutional traditions and offended some police officers and officials 1990s

• concerns about police conduct focused on police–community relations. included race relations, corruption, and the interrogation and treatment of people held in custody.

• principle of parliamentary sovereignty has limited the role of the judiciary

• Courts have no power to judge the constitutionality of legislative acts judicial review 

• can only determine whether policy directives or administrative acts violate common law or an act of Parliament

• the British judiciary is generally less politicized and influential than its U.S. counterpart.

• Jurists

• participated in the wider political debate outside court

• headed royal commissions on the conduct of industrial relations, the struggle in riots over Northern Ireland in Britain’s inner cities, and the suspicious death of a UN weapons inspector who challenged Blair’s case for the war in Iraq

• Britain has witnessed dramatic institutional changes in law and the administration of justice

• 2009 

• creation of the UK Supreme Court, which serves as the highest court of appeal, removing that authority from the House of Lords

• member of the European Union

• Britain =bound to abide by the European Court of Justice (ECJ)

• with the passage of the Human Rights Act in 1998

• Britain was required to comply with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)

• the adoption of the ECHR forced Britain to curtail discrimination against gays in the military

• United Kingdom 

• a state comprising distinct nations (England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland) 

• British political framework has traditionally been unitary, not federal

• for centuries, no formal powers devolved to either the nations within the United Kingdom or to subnational (really subcentral or sub-UK) units

• Parliament has asserted authority over all political units in the United Kingdom

• No powers were reserved for any other unit of government

• no states, and no powers were reserved for nations within the United Kingdom or for local government

• nations were a significant aspect of collective identities in the United Kingdom

• often exerting a powerful hold on their members

• Nations were not political units, but that is no longer true

• Recent constitutional reforms

• introduced important modifications in the organizing principles of the United Kingdom

• referendums in Wales and Scotland in 1997, and in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland (an independent country) 

• 1998, Blair’s Labour government 

• introduced a set of power-sharing arrangements (what the British call “devolution”) 

• to govern the arrangements among the UK Westminster Parliament, the Welsh Assembly, the Northern Ireland Assembly, and the Scottish Parliament

• 2014

• Scottish voters narrowly defeated a referendum on Scottish independence

• UK government 

• retains responsibility for all policy areas that have not been devolved and that are the traditional domain of nation-states

• Westminster 

• controls security and foreign policy, economic policy, trade, defense, and social security for the United Kingdom as a whole, except where it does not—that is, where specific powers have been ceded to Scotland, Northern Ireland, or Wales

• Of all the devolved nations and regions within the United Kingdom, Scotland and the Scottish government enjoy the most powers 

• Wales and Northern Ireland have relatively limited independent authority and have legislative arenas called assemblies

• Scotland 

• Parliament

• government is responsible for crucial areas of policy, including education, health, and the administration of justice

• devolution 

• involves both an element of federalism and a compromise

• UK Parliament is still the mother of all parliaments

• every power devolved from the UK Parliament to the Scottish Parliament or the Welsh or Northern Ireland assembly chips away at the very core of parliamentary sovereignty that lies at the heart of the Westminster model

•  Devolution sparked a controversy about the asymmetry in voting rights that devolution produces.

• English and Welsh MPs cannot vote on some matters related to Scotland, in areas where policy had been devolved from the Westminster Parliament to the Scottish Parliament

• Devolution within England

• is also part of the reform process 

• Regional development agencies (RDAs) 

• introduced throughout England in 1999 

• facilitate economic development at the regional level

• unelected bodies with no statutory authority

• have opened the door to popular mobilization in the long term for elected regional assemblies

• Blair government 

• placed changes in the governance of London on the fast track

• introduction of a directly elected mayor of London in May 2000 marked an important reform

• leading to the direct election of mayors in other major cities

• Birmingham and putting into practice a process of decentralizing power

SECTION 4

• Parliamentary sovereignty

• core constitutional principle of the British political system

• for policymaking and policy implementation, the focus is not on Westminster, but rather on Whitehall

• UK Parliament has little direct participation in policymaking

• Policymaking 

• emerges primarily from within the executive

• decision-making is strongly influenced by policy communities—informal networks with extensive knowledge, access, and personal connections to those responsible for policy 

• hothouse environment, civil servants, ministers, and members of the policy communities work through informal ties 

• cooperative style develops, as the ministry becomes an advocate for key players 

• civil servants may come to over identify the public good with the advancement of policy within their area of responsibility

• the executive or judiciary cannot set any act of Parliament aside, nor is any Parliament bound by the actions of any previous Parliament

• the control exerted by the House of Commons, the lower of the two houses of Parliament and by far the more powerful—is not unlimited

• The House of Commons

• owelr house of Parliament

• 650 seats at the time of the 2017 election

• exercises the main legislative power in Britain

• Along with the two unelected elements of Parliament, the Crown and the House of Lord

• the Commons has three main functions

• to pass laws, to provide finances for the state by authorizing taxation, and to review and scrutinize public administration and government policy

• Commons has a limited legislative function

• very important democratic role

•  provides a highly visible arena for policy debate and the partisan collision of political worldviews

• crucial element of drama is nearly always missing

• MPs from the governing party who consider rebelling against the leader of their respective parties or challenge the terms of the coalition agreement are understandably reluctant in a close and critical vote to force a general election. This would place their jobs in jeopardy

• Only once since the defeat of Ramsay MacDonald’s government in 1924 

• a government been brought down by a defeat in the Commons (in 1979)

• Today, balance of institutional power has shifted from Parliament to the governing party and the executive

• Bills must be introduced in the Commons and the Lords

• approval by the Lords is not required

• ideas for legislation come from 

• political parties, pressure groups, think tanks, the prime minister’s policy unit, or government departments

• Proposed legislation

• then drafted by civil servants, circulated within Whitehall, approved by the cabinet, and then refined by the office of Parliamentary Counsel

• In the Commons the bill usually comes to the floor three times

• The bill is formally read upon introduction, printed, distributed, debated in general terms

• after an interval, given a second reading, followed by a vote

• The bill then undergoes detailed review by a standing committee reflecting the overall party balance

• then goes through a report stage

• new amendments may be introduce

•  third reading

• the bill is considered in final form (and voted on) without debate.

• =bill passed in the Commons follows a parallel path in the Lords

• bill is either accepted without change, amended, or rejected

• Lords pass bills concerning taxation or budgetary matters without alteration

• can add technical and editorial amendments to other bills (if approved by the Commons) to add clarity and precision

• it receives royal assent (which is only a formality) and becomes an Act of Parliament.

• the House of Lords was a wholly unelected body comprised of hereditary peers (i.e., nobility of the rank of duke, marquis, earl, viscount, or baron), and life peers (appointed on the recommendation of the prime minister or the recently institutionalized House of Lords Appointment Commission)

• also includes the archbishops of Canterbury and York and some two dozen other bishops and archbishops of the Church of England

• 1999

• the right of all hereditary peers to sit and vote in the Lords was curtailed and that right limited to 92, pending further reform

• 2017 t

• about 800 members eligible to take part in the work of the House of Lords.

• Lords serves mainly as a chamber of revision

• providing expertise in redrafting legislation, with the power to suggest amendments to legislation in the Commons

• can debate, refine, and delay—but not block—legislation

• 2006

• to protect the civil liberties of British Muslims, the Lords persuaded the Commons to water down a bill that prohibited incitement to violence on the grounds that the bill might be used to target Muslim clerics unfairly

• It is interesting that when it comes to parliamentary reform, more 

• Lords engaged in unruly and inconclusive debate 

• challenging the coalition government on a variety of governance and substantive matters

• displaying firm resistance to reforms in the NHS and welfare benefits

• number of changes in the House of Commons

• 1970s, backbenchers (MPs of the governing party who have no governmental office and rank-and-file opposition members) 

• markedly less deferential

• backbench rebellion against the Major government’s EU policy in 1993

• was viewed by Thatcherites as dangerously pro-European, weakened the prime minister considerably and divided the party

• one-third of Labour MPs defected on key votes authorizing the use of force in Iraq in 2003

• a historic rebellion

• December 2016

• the House of Commons held an emergency debate on international action to protect civilians in Aleppo and Syria, no clear plan of action emerged

• In addition to the standing committees that routinely review bills, in 1979 the Commons extended the number and responsibilities of select committees, which help Parliament exert control over the executive by examining specific policies or aspects of administration.

• The most controversial select committees 

• monitor the major departments and ministries

• Select committees hold hearings, take written and oral testimony, and question senior civil servants and ministers

• reports have included strong policy recommendations at odds with government policy

• These reforms have complicated the role of the civil service 

• Civil servants have been required to testify in a manner that may damage their ministers, revealing official culpability or flawed judgment

• 2009 

• tawdry scandal was uncovered that affected all the major parties. It concerned fraudulent claims by MPs (including ministers) for travel expenses and expenses for upkeep of extravagant homes away from London—in some cases, homes occupied by their lovers

• practice of fiddling expense accounts was widespread, and improprieties over expense accounts resulted in jail time in some cases

• Britain 

• often referred to as a two-party system 

• 2017 election made clear it is not

• from 1945 until the 2017 election, only leaders of the Labour or Conservative parties had served as prime ministers

• 1945 through 2005, the Conservative and Labour parties each won eight general elections

• throughout the postwar period, these two parties have routinely divided at least 85 percent of the seats in the Commons

• 1980s, the Liberal Democrats (Lib Dems) have become an important alternative

• Britain also has several national parties: the Scottish National Party (SNP) in Scotland and the Plaid Cymru in Wales, as well as a roster of parties competing in Northern Ireland

• The United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP)

• 1993 and initially dismissed as, in the words of David Cameron, “fruitcakes and loonies,” 

• in recent years emerged as a powerful and disruptive force in British politics

• emergence of nationalist parties, combined with the increasing fragility of the two major parties, has increased the likelihood of coalition government

• illustrated by the outcome of the 2017 elections.

• Fifty years ago

• those not engaged in manual labor voted Conservative three times more commonly than they did Labour

• More than two out of three manual workers, by contrast, voted Labour

• Britain then conformed to one classic pattern of a Western European party system: a two-class/two-party system.

• Mid-1970s

• significant changes have developed in the party system

• decline in class-based voting and a growing disaffection with the moderate social democracy associated with the Keynesian welfare state

• The Labour Party 

• suffered from divisions between its trade unionist and parliamentary elements, constitutional wrangling over the power of trade unions to determine party policy at annual conferences, and disputes over how the leader would be selected

• Divisions spilled over into foreign policy issues

• 1980s and 1990s 

• witnessed relative harmony within the party

• Moderate trade union and parliamentary leadership agreed on major policy issues. Labour became a moderate, center-left party 

• Tony Blair

• Labour was rebranded as “New Labour,” 

• After the party’s defeat in the 2010 election

• two close-knit brothers who had served in the cabinet, David Miliband, with close ties to Blair as foreign minister, and Ed Miliband, with close ties to Brown and former Secretary of State for Climate Change, were the top contenders to succeed Gordon Brown

• dramatic contest for leadership of the Labour Party in September 2010

• Ed Miliband, the younger brother, prevailed in a very close election, signaling a turn away from New Labour and an effort to turn the party in a more progressive direction

• Miliband tried with only moderate success to rally the base, particularly among trade unionists and public-sector employees, who were feeling the pinch the hardest under the austerity policies of the Coalition government

• Jeremy Corbyn

• elected leader of the Labour Party in 2015

• moving it sharply to the left and inviting controversy over his support for the Palestinians

• 2017 snap election

• Corbyn surprised everyone with the fervor of his campaigning, and under his leadership

• Labour managed to pick up 30 seats, effectively thwarting May’s attempts to consolidate her conservative majority

• It remains to be seen how Corbyn’s Labour party can build on these recent electoral successes to develop a fitting alternative to the more centrist vision of “New Labour.”

• The Conservative Party 

• dates back to the eighteenth century

• pragmatism, flexibility, and organizational capabilities have made it one of the most successful and, at times, innovative center-right parties in Europe

• 2003

• Michael Howard took over as party leader

• Conservatives seemed revitalized

• But it was not easy for Howard to translate his assured performance from the front bench in Parliament into popular support, as effective opposition to New Labour proved elusive

• 2005, the Conservatives elected David Cameron as party leader in a landslide

• Cameron 

• wasted little time in reorienting the party, modernizing its appeal, and reaching out beyond its traditional core values

• acknowledged that New Labour had been right in understanding the mood of Britain and right, also, to insist on achieving both social justice and economic success

• promised to reduce poverty both in Britain and globally, take on reducing climate change as a priority, and ensure security from terrorism

• worked hard to reposition the Conservatives as a more centrist party that could compete effectively with post-Blair New Labour across the economic and social spectrum.

• In a speech to the Conservative Party conference in October 2016, Theresa May 

• outlined her vision of the Conservative Party

• emphasized the need for it to change once again in light of the “quiet revolution” 

• May is difficult to place, with right-wing policies on immigration and education, a left-leaning attack on the excesses of the business community, and a populist concern for the growing inequality in society.

• 1970s

• the Liberal Party was the only centrist challenger to the Labour and Conservative parties.

• 1980s

• a changing roster of centrist parties posed an increasingly significant threat to the two-party dominance of Conservative and Labour

• 1981

• the Social Democratic Party (SDP) formed out of a split within the Labour Party.

• Conservative victory in 1987

• the Liberal Party and most of the SDP merged to form the Social and Liberal Democratic Party (now called the Liberal Democrats, or Lib Dems), which quickly emerged as a major political player.

• 2001 general election

• party increased its vote tally by nearly one-fifth and won fifty-two seats, the most gained by a centrist third party since 1929

• success positioned the party as a potentially powerful center-left critic of New Labour

• until Blair’s fortunes declined, Labour did not make it easy for them

• Blair government began to spend massively to improve education and health care 

• narrowed the range of policy issues on which the Liberal Democrats could challenge New Labour

• Charles Kennedy won the political gamble that he took in spring 2003 by opposing the war in Iraq, but it was not easy to take electoral advantage of Blair’s political weakness 

• the fortunes of the Liberal Dems declined.

• December 2007

• Nick Clegg, a 40-year-old ex-journalist and former member of the European Parliament, took over leadership of the Liberal Democrats

• Clegg and his party faced an uphill battle to make the Lib Dems a serious contender in time for the 2010 election.

• fueled by the country’s fatigue with New Labour, combined with post-9/11 and 7/7 concerns about the erosion of civil liberties and Clegg’s energetic and confident leadership, 

• fall 2008

• launched a campaign to knock on 1 million doors to connect with ordinary citizens

• effort quickly catapulted the Liberal Democrats into serious contention.

• In the wake of the Brexit vote

• the Liberal Democrats have become increasingly focused on the needs of Britain’s business community

• On the day that the debate took place in Parliament to trigger Article 50 (which allows Britain to leave the European Union), Liberal Democrat MPs and Peers held a “Business and Brexit day,” which specifically focused on meeting businesses and business leaders from across the country and addressing their concerns

• 2010 coalition government 

• led many to be concerned that the two-party system in Britain was eroding

• Some anticipated the emergence of a two-and-and-a-half party system, or even a more fluid multiparty system, with an enhanced role for less mainstream parties

• This prospect provoked considerable handwringing, notably with reference to the far-right British National Party, which placed their first members in the European Parliament in 2009, and the UKIP, which, drawing on a deep reservoir of Britain’s Euroskepticism, pushed Labour into third place

• Green Party performed badly in 2010

• winning only one seat

• BNP and UKIP secured no seats

• radical right parties have not had the success in Britain that they have enjoyed in the rest of Europe

• UKIP's influence increased in recent years, especially thanks to its support for Brexit

• its victory in promoting Brexit had the paradoxical effect of weakening its support once it had achieved its goal

• It fared very poorly in the 2017 election and, in part due to the UK’s “first past the post” voting system, failed to secure a single seat in Parliament

• British general elections 

• exclusively for seats in the House of Commons

• prime minister is not directly elected as prime minister, but as an MP from a single constituency (electoral district). The queen invites the leader of the party that can control a majority in the Commons to become prime minister. Constituencies vary widely in size, but the average number of voters remains roughly comparable.

• Traditionally, Parliament had a maximum life of 5 years, with no fixed term. The 2010 coalition agreement resulted in passage of the Fixed-Term Parliament Act of 2011, providing that parliamentary general elections must be held every 5 years, beginning in 2015. A vote of no confidence in the government, however, or a two-thirds majority vote in the House of Commons can still trigger a general election at any time. It was the latter that allowed Theresa May to call for a snap election in June 2017.

• Election for representatives in the Commons (MPs) is by a “first-past-the-post” principle in each constituency. In this single-member plurality system, the candidate who receives the most votes is elected. There is no requirement of a majority and no element of proportional representation (a system in which each party is given a percentage of seats in a representative assembly roughly comparable to its percentage of the popular vote).

• This winner-take-all electoral system tends to exaggerate the size of the victory of the largest party and to reduce the influence of regionally dispersed lesser parties. This system is praised for increasing the chances that a party or coalition of parties will gain a majority of parliamentary seats and therefore form a stable government. Critics of the electoral system, however, charge that it does not give adequate representation to minority opinion.

• Contrary to the typical tendency of the winner-take-all electoral system, the 2010 election 

• hung parliament (a situation after an election when no single party comprises a majority in the Commons)

• after a quick set of negotiation

• an arrangement can be found to form a coalition government

• 2010 was rare occasion

• Britain exhibits a stable, two-party-dominant system (Conservative and Labour)

• support for a third party (Liberal Democrat) spread widely across the country, but too thinly for the party to win a substantial number of seats

• The Liberal Democrats needed an exceptional stroke of luck to buck the trend— 2010

• campaign by the Tories (Conservatives) peaked early and failed to inspire

• could not convince the electorate that they had the experience or were equipped to handle the enormous challenges of the economic downturn 

• Blair fatigue, an npopular successor in Gordon Brown, and a failing economy

• New Labour never stood a chance to win the election

• first televised debates ever in UK politics enlivened the campaig

• fueled a surge in popularity for the telegenic and media-savvy 

• Liberal Democratic leader, Nick Clegg

• stole the show in the first debate by providing British viewers with a fresh and honest alternative to the status quo

• “Cleggmania” 

• produced polls showing the Lib Dems with an unprecedented one-third of the electorate behind them.

• Britain enjoyed the unlikely spectacle of a three-party contest

• The Liberal Democrats

• with 23 percent of the vote, won 57 seats in 2010

• Labour

• with 29 percent of the vote, won 258 seats and the Conservatives, with 36.1 percent of the vote, won 306 seats

• Liberal Democrats 

• achieved a share of the vote that was roughly two-thirds that of the 

• Conservatives won 

• roughly one-fifth of the actual number of seats

• Liberal Democrats want what neither major party will give them

• a change in the electoral system to proportional representation (PR), where the number of seats allocated to parties in Parliament would closely approximate the proportion of votes cast for a given party

• PR

• catapulting the Lib Dems into major party status and making them a potential kingmaker, tipping the balance in many close general elections to either the Conservatives or Labour

• it is unlikely that such a fundamental change in the electoral system will be introduced any time soon

• parliamentary sovereignty 

• any time that there is a political will to change the electoral system, Parliament can change i

• no party secured a majority on its own

• 2017

• the two major parties did significantly increase their total share of votes and seats, the Conservative Party was forced to ally with a small party to obtain a majority

• UK’s traditional pattern of two-party dominance remains quite uncertain

• party and electoral systems contribute to the creation of a Parliament that has been and remains a bastion of white men, but it is becoming more diverse with each general election

• 2015 election 

• women made up 29 percent of the representation, up from 22 percent in 2010—thanks largely to Labour, whose new MPs made up 43 percent of Labour’s share, helped too by the SNP cohort, of whom more than a third (36 percent) were women

• now not one single female Liberal Democrat MP

• United Kingdom also still compares unfavorably with Sweden’s parliament

• is 45 percent female and sets the gold standard for gender equality. 

• Britain lags behind many other countries in gender equality, including Belgium (41.3 percent), Iceland (39.7 percent), Argentina (36.6 percent), and Burundi (30.5 percent). 

• 2015 election brought more ethnic diversity to the British Parliament as well

• nonwhite MPs made up more than 6 percent of the new Parliament, up from 4.2 percent in 2010—a 56 percent increase—and approximately 42 minority-ethnic MPs were elected to the Commons. This result built on the success of the 2010 election, when 27 nonwhite MPs won seats in Westminster (among them Alan Mak, the first MP of Chinese origin)

• British political scientist Ivor Crewe referred to the emergence of two two-party systems competition between the Conservative and Labour parties dominates contests in English urban and northern seats, and Conservative–center party competition dominates England’s rural and southern seats. A third two-party competition has emerged in Scotland, where Labour competes with the SNP

• The national (that is regional) parties have challenged two-party dominance since the 1970s 

• only limited result

•  The SNP was founded in 1934

• Welsh counterpart, the Plaid Cymru, in 1925

• 2010 election showed the strength of Labour in Scotlan

•  it won forty-one seats and 42 percent of the Scottish popular vote, an improvement over 2005

• The Lib Dems 

• came in a distant second with eleven seats, and the SNP won six seats.

• election demonstrated once more that the Conservatives have very little traction in Scotland (they walked away with a single seat)

• In Wales, the Conservatives fared better, gaining five more seats than they had won in 2005

• a total of eight seats at Westminster

• The Plaid Cymru won three seats

• one more than in 2005

• Labour lost four seats compared to 2005, but walked away with a very strong showing, winning twenty-six out of forty seat

• right-wing, populist UKIP was the big winner in Britain in the European parliament elections in 2014

• though it won no seats, it did transform the future electoral map in Britain, winning 27.5 percent of the ballots

• 2015

• Conservative share of the vote held up well across most groups, especially among the 65+ voters, where they picked up 5.5 points from Labour since 2010

• The Labour Party failed to make a dent in the Conservative majority

• except for young people and renters and BME voters

• the vote share of the two main parties remains broadly stable

• the pattern of voting for other parties has completely changed

• Liberal Democrats’ vote share has collapsed across the board

• fallen sharpest among under 34s (perhaps related to tuition fees) 

• private renters are the most likely to vote Green

• UKIP 

• takes third place among nearly every group

• Exceptions: managerial and professional ranks and BME voters

• does best among older, white, working-class voters

• Conservative-Labour swing among the men and women vote overall was very similar

• Both vote Conservative in relatively equal proportions, while women are slightly more likely to vote Labour and less likely to vote UKIP. 

• younger women had the biggest swing to Labour of any group

• older women had a small swing back to the Conservatives

• The two groups are almost exact opposites of each other: Labour has a 20 point lead among women aged 18-24, while the Conservatives have an 18 point lead among women over 55

• political scientists Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba

• the civic (or political) culture in Britain was characterized by trust, deference to authority, and pragmatism

• 1970s

• crucial turning point in British political culture and group identities that challenged this view

• long years of economic decline culminated in economic reversals in standard of living for many Britons

• historic bonds of occupational and social class grew weaker for many 

• union membership and popularity declined

• a growing number of conservative think tanks and mass-circulation newspapers worked hard to erode support for the welfare state

• social movements such as feminism, antinuclear activism, and environmentalism challenged the basic tenets of British political culture

• race and ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation gained significance

• fragmented the political map and inspired a shift to the right

• Thatcherism 

• rejected collectivism, the redistribution of resources from rich to poor, and state responsibility for full employment

• considered individual property rights more important than the social rights claimed by all citizens in the welfare state

• set the stage in cultural terms for the new Labour consolidation of neoliberalism and the core political–cultural orientation in Britain

• key change in political culture in the last quarter-century 

• the weakening of bonds grounded in the experience of labor 

• Thatcher era

• traditional values of “an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay” and solidarity among coworkers were derided as “rigidities” that reduced competitiveness—a perspective that has continued through New Labour and the coalition government 

• “tough on the unions” was a core premise of New Labour

• Conservative-led coalition government powerfully reinforced this view

• aggressive cuts in public spending

• public-sector unions

• have become a lightning rod, not only in the United Kingdom, but in the United States as well, for governments looking to cut budgets

• Collective bargaining 

• Largely relegated to declining private-sector industries and the public sector

• Strike rates in the United Kingdom 

• generally below the average of both the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the European Union in recent decades

• Decolonization 

• created a multiethnic Britain, and national identity has become especially complicated fragmented sovereignty in light of Britain’s decision to exit the European Union challenges to the commingled histories of four nations (England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland/Northern Ireland) interplay of race and nationality created doubts about British identity 

• Ethnicity intra-UK territorial attachments, Europeanization, and globalization are complicating national identity

• in response to globalization, environmental issues, and the rightward slide of politics throughout Europe

• political protest on the rise

• Protesters demand more accountability and transparency in the operations of powerful international trade and development agencies

• 1999,

• London became the site of protests timed to correspond with the Seattle meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO)

• The London demonstration 

• attracted 100,000 protesters

• environmental activism 

• tookoff with the growing attention to climate change 

• 2015

• hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in London ahead of the Paris climate summit at the end of the year

• students marched through London to protest the rising costs of university and further education in 2012

• stretch of Whitehall was brought to a near-standstill in 2015 by a group outside Downing Street protesting the United Kingdom’s plans to bomb ISIS targets in Syria, 

• 2016, thousands of people protested the referendum decision to leave the European Union

• Recently, members of the newly formed Stop Trump Coalition sent a letter to the Guardian protesting the prospect of an impending visit to the United Kingdom by U.S. president Donald Trump

• developments have underscored the impact of technology on British politics in the past decade

• 2012 

• Rupert Murdoch, the Australian media mogul whose companies in 2011 accounted for the second-largest media holdings in the world (including the prestigious Times of London and The Wall Street Journal), was linked to a major hacking scandal

• hackers used sophisticated electronic technologies to gain access to emails and voicemails for the purpose of breaking major news stories ahead of the competition, creating collateral damage for many news organizations and high-flying politicians

• scandal implicated Tony Blair at a trial about the hacking incidents, when it was revealed that the former prime minister secretly offered to advise the Murdoch empire as the scandal erupted

• Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the UK surveillance agency, has collected millions of webcam images. Social media, in more recent years, has revealed itself to be an important indicator of Britain’s political climate 

• Twitterhas become a thermometer depended upon by politicians and other public figures who not too long ago would have relied instead on polls and charts

• following Brexit, for example, MP Boris Johnson, the leading orchestrator of the move, was the target of so much ridicule and derision on Twitter and Facebook that many believe this to be the reason that he decided not to run for party leader when Cameron resigned as prime minister

• The Internet has become public opinion

• Not just damaging to the careers of political leaders, the widespread use and abuse of technology poses a threat to the everyday lives of British citizens and underscores the vulnerabilities of the digital age

•  May 2017

• Internet-based blackmail attempt hit computer networks in dozens of countries worldwide and crippled Britain’s NHS. Transmitted via email, the malicious software, known as WannaCry, locked British hospitals out of their computer systems and demanded ransom before users could be let back in

• Doctors could not call up patient files, and emergency rooms were forced to divert people seeking urgent care

• Critics of the Conservative government 

• quick to suggest that chronic underfunding of the NHS left its computer systems especially vulnerable to cyberattack

SECTION 5

• Margaret Thatcher famously refused to back down from her hard-core conservative policies, famously intoning, “U-turn if you want to, the Lady’s not for turning.” 

• Britain has always had a complicated relationship to its European allies, preferring to nurture its special relationship with the United States instead, and while it finally joined the European Union in 1973, it has never fully embraced its European identity

• Britain’s decision to leave the European Union came as a shock to both itself and the rest of the world. The referendum roiled global markets and caused the British pound to fall temporarily to its lowest level in decades

• British citizens appeared to be caught by surprise by the results

•  David Cameron

• lukewarm support for the European Union contributed to the success of the referendum

• compelled to step down the very next day

• Theresa May

• longest-serving Home Secretary

• named his successor

• Brexit vote 

• expressed Britain’s wish to leave the European Union but said nothing about how to make the break

• Left the brand-new and untested prime minister, who had herself voted against leaving the European Union, facing unprecedented challenges

• Prime Minister May

• fudging both the terms and the timing of Britain’s departure from the European Union and earning criticism from all sides

• unflattering play on her name “Mrs. Maybe” 

• the balance of power among constitutionally critical institutions raises important questions about a democratic deficit at the heart of the Westminster model

•  Britain’s executive easily overpowers Parliament

• strength in relation to the legislature may be greater than in any other democracy 

• a Supreme Court ruling forced Prime Minister May to submit the Brexit bill for parliamentary approval

• proved to be far from the major hindrance that she appeared to fear it would be

• The bill passed both houses of Parliament with overwhelming support

• March 2017 

• May sent a letter to Donald Trusk, president of the European Council, formally invoking Article 50 and beginning the legal process of Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union. Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty allows a member-state of the European Union to notify the group of its intention to withdraw and obliges the European Union to try to negotiate a “withdrawal agreement” with that state

• it remains unclear what impact the Brexit vote will have upon the relationships among the four governments within the United Kingdom

• 2014

• Scotland voted fairly convincingly to stay in the European Union, while England and Wales voted to leave—a fact that has led the Scottish Parliament to seek to hold a second referendum on Scottish independence in 2018 or 2019

• relatively small scale of the ethnic minority community limits the political impact of the most divisive issues concerning collective identities

• Here the British political system most severely challenge the principles of democracy and tolerance 

• Britain

• single-member, simple-plurality electoral system, and no proportional representation

• minority representation in Parliament remains very low

• deep-seated social attitudes that no government can easily transform

• issues of immigration, refugees, and asylum still inspire a fear of multiculturalism among white Britons

• Since the 7/7 bombings committed by British Muslims in London, intense scrutiny has been focused on the Muslim community, which faces endless finger-pointing and harassment, and positions are hardening against multiculturalism

• February 2011

• Prime Minister Cameron explicitly challenged the long-standing cross-party support for multiculturalism at a high-visibility security conference in Munich

• condemned a culture of “hands-off” tolerance in the United Kingdom and in Europe, and in strong terms, he warned of the dangers of multicultural policy, which made it possible for Islamic militants to radicalize Muslim youth, some of whom were likely to become terrorists

• concluded that Europe had to defeat terrorism at home, not exclusively by the use of force elsewhere (for example, in Afghanistan)

• United Kingdom reels from a post-Brexit surge in racist hate crimes and xenophobia

• Prime Minister May appears to be following closely in Cameron’s footsteps

• driving policies aimed at surveilling, criminalizing, and extraditing Muslims, refugees, and migrants

• in 2010

• May key backer of the controversial “Preventing Violent Extremism” (Prevent) program

• launched in the aftermath of the 7/7 bombings

• Muslims unconnected to wrongdoing have been subject to surveillance and criminalization

• November 2014 

• May proposed the “Counter-Terrorism and Security Act” 

• implemented in 2015 

• dramatically expands the powers of the government to seize the passports of people suspected of traveling outside the United Kingdom for “terrorist activity” and permits the temporary expulsion of suspected terrorists

• May, in light of her reluctance to condemn U.S. president Donald Trump’s ban on refugees and entry to the United States for citizens of seven Muslim-majority nations, as thousands across the world took to the streets in protest 

• Critics accuse her of putting good relations with President Trump and the hopes of a post-Brexit trade deal between the United Kingdom and the United States ahead of human rights

• Britain’s young adults, who for much of the twentieth century enjoyed well-above-average living standards, have been displaced by the rise of well-off pensioners, in the most dramatic generational change in decades

• evaporating jobs, unaffordable property, and rising debt, average twentysomethings in Britain have seen their living standards slip from a position of comparative affluence to well below par over the past 35 years

• older Britons have enjoyed a rapid rise up the economic ladder, thanks in large part to fiscal policies of the coalition government that aimed to protect pensioners from austerity measures and concentrated fiscal pain instead on young adults

• 2010 decision 

• triple university tuition

• making the United Kingdom’s average undergraduate tuition fees the highest in the industrialized world

• met with angry student protesters outside Parliament 

• 2016 Ipsos MORI poll

• 54 percent of the country believes that young people’s lives will be worse than their own generation’s

• population’s deep sense of foreboding about the next generation’s prospects stands in stark contrast to an overwhelming recognition from those born before World War II, as well as the baby boomers (born between 1945 and 1964), that they have a much better life than their parents’

• Brexit vote underscored the generational divide that characterizes life in Britain

• Almost three-quarters (73 percent) of 18- to 24-year-olds said that they had voted to stay in the European Union, compared with 62 percent of 25- to 34-year-olds and 52 percent of 35- to 44-year-olds

• during the reign of Queen Victoria (1837–1901), the British Empire encompassed fully one-quarter of the world’s population and exerted direct colonial rule over some four dozen countries scattered across the globe 

• the empire fell apart in the half-century of decolonization between the independence of India in 1947 and the return of Hong Kong to China in 1997

• sun set on the British Empire (apart from a few scattered dependencies), but the legacies of empire lived on, shaping Britain’s relationship to the world in important ways

• end of empire did not bring the end of Great Power aspirations for Britain, but shifted its emphasis

• the British role in the globalizing world of states has been shaped by its determination to view its special relationship with the United States as a dominant framework for foreign policy and global leadership, even at the expense of a full commitment to economic integration with and leadership in the European Union

• Britain has voted to sever its relations with the European Union, its special relationship with the United States is all the more important 

• end of the empire

• it was inevitable that the special relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States would become a relationship between unequal partners

• U.S. interests have tended to exert a tremendous magnetic pull on British foreign policy, to the relative neglect of European partnerships and broader international influences

• Before 9/11

• New Labour stood for a coherent and progressive foreign policy framework—one that linked globalization to a growing UK commitment to narrow the development gap, and in the words of Robin Cook, Blair’s first foreign secretary, “to be a force for good” in the world.

• Kosovo war created the context for Blair’s explicit linkage of globalization with foreign and security policy

• Blair’s “doctrine of international community”

•  gave new weight to the notion of global interdependence by asserting a responsibility to use military force when necessary to achieve humanitarian objectives and contain catastrophic human rights abuses

• conditioned his response to 9/11, and subsequently his determination to bring the United Kingdom into the war in Iraq. But in the days following 9/11, the powerful attraction of the Atlantic alliance, with Blair’s distinctive inflections, took an irresistible hold on British foreign policy

• several elements came together to forge the decision to support George W. Bush and the U.S. administration, even when the venue of the war on terror changed from Afghanistan to Iraq: concern about strengthening unilateralist forces in Washington, characterization of the intervention as a humanitarian effort, and a belief that the terms of the special relationship demanded UK support of the U.S. efforts in Iraq as part of a global war on terror

• Blair’s doctrine of international community

• the reverberations of empire were unmistakable

• The civilizing mission of empire and the right of the metropolitan power to use force against the weaker dependent or failed states were both understood to constitute an exercise of humanitarian intervention

• challenges facing the Conservative–Liberal government under the leadership of David Cameron 

• how to reconcile the pro-European orientation of the Liberal Democrats with the Euroskeptical approach of the Tories 

• to allay European concerns and his coalition partners

• Cameron’s first trip abroad as prime minister 

• Paris and Berlin

• Afghani president Hamid Karzai was the first foreign leader to meet with him

• Cameron’s balancing act fell apart with the advent of Britain’s unexpected vote to withdraw from the European Union

• pushed Cameron to resign and forced Theresa May

• reaffirming Britain’s special relationship with the United States

• May was the first foreign leader to visit Donald Trump after his inauguration, and much to the dismay of many at home, issued an invitation on the spot for Trump to pay a state visit, with all the trimmings

• Britain has always preserved its distance from Europe in both nautical and political terms

• “them, not us.” 

• Britain’s decision to withdraw from the European Union should not have shocked the world as much as it did

• Britain’s challenges to its geopolitical identity do not end at its shores

• reaffirm the illusion of unity within the United Kingdom

• in light of the 2014 Scottish referendum that very nearly demolished once and for all the precarious assumption that the United Kingdom would remain one state, but four nations – a challenge that remains very much on the horizon

• Scottish parliament voted in March 2017 to seek a second referendum for independence

• England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland are each governed by separate institutions and anchored by different cultural values and incommensurate approaches to economic governance