Transcription
Over the course of the last few videos I posted, I've received a fair few comments asking for a beginner's guide to UK politics. Well, you ask and you shall receive. In this video, I will start from square one and take you through the basics of UK politics. From the role of the monarch to the parliament, the government, as well as local and devolved assemblies. If you don't know anything about British politics, are interested, but just don't know where to start, well, you're in the right place. And so, without further ado, let's get into it. And we'll begin with the basics.
The UK is formerly the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Great Britain refers to this island which is made up of England, Scotland, and Wales. These are known as countries within the union. The Northern Ireland part refers to this part of the island of Ireland. The Republic of Ireland is not part of the UK. It is a neighboring state. Don't get that wrong. Irish nationalists will not appreciate it.
The UK also incorporates three crown dependencies which rely on the UK government for security and foreign policy matters but are otherwise self-governing. These are the Isle of Man as well as the Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey. And the UK government also oversees many operational matters in their 14 overseas territories. However, these territories are not part of what you would call the UK's domestic territory. So far so good. Great.
Let's turn our attention to the monarch. The UK is a constitutional monarchy. This means that the country has a monarch, currently King Charles III, but that monarch is restrained by certain limitations of power. In the case of the UK, since the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215 and subsequent moves towards democratization, the king or queen is no longer sovereign in their powers. And today, the role is mostly ceremonial. The most important formal roles that they have include appointing the government, opening and dissolving parliament, and granting royal assent, essentially the final stamp of approval on bills. These roles may sound incredibly important and political, but in performing these tasks, the monarch has protocols to follow that limit his involvement.
The monarch is a hereditary title that upon the death of the current monarch is passed on to their oldest child. Previously, it was the oldest son, but since 2013, this has changed to be genderless. And this change came about in a change to the constitution.
The other half of the term constitutional monarchy is super interesting from a UK perspective. The UK does have a constitution, but it's not codified. So, while a country like the US has a straightforward constitution that you can look up and go and read, which sets out how the government, the courts, and the legislature function, the UK does not. Instead, the constitution is a complex series of acts of parliament, international treaties, and unwritten norms which the courts use to determine constitutionality. This allows the constitution to be more easily amended, perhaps for better or for worse. And one of those bodies that could quite easily change the constitution is the parliament.
The UK has what is called a bicameral parliament. This means it has two chambers that bills must pass through to become law. These chambers are the lower house, the House of Commons, and the upper house, the House of Lords. The House of Commons is a democratically elected chamber with 650 Members of Parliament or MPs. These MPs are elected with the first past the post electoral system where the UK is divided into 650 constituencies that each elect the member who receives the most votes at the general election, even if they don't earn a majority. For example, during last year's general election, I lived in the constituency of Glasgow West. In this constituency, Patricia Ferguson from the Labour Party won the election and became my new MP despite having more votes cast against her than for her. Elections must be held every five years, but the Prime Minister can choose to instruct the monarch to call an election early. The House of Commons is presided over by the Speaker of the House, currently Lindsay Hoyle. The Speaker must be an MP and they are selected by a vote in parliament.
The House of Lords, on the other hand, is not democratically elected. Instead, its members, known as peers, serve for life and are appointed by the King, most often upon the advice of the Prime Minister. Aside from the political appointments who tend to be politicians nearing the end of their careers, the House of Lords also includes senior Church of England bishops and many independent crossbench peers, making this chamber much less party political. The House of Lords is presided over by the Lord Speaker, currently Lord McFall of Altham, who is also elected by the other peers.
Every major party, both in the Commons and the Lords, has a whips' office whose responsibility it is to ensure their MPs and peers vote the way that their party leaders want them to. The effectiveness of the British whipping system means that in UK politics, it's actually quite rare to see parliamentarians voting against their party, a term known as breaking the whip.
For a bill to become law, it normally must pass both houses of parliament. During this process, it can be amended by one of the houses, but the new version must also be approved by the other house. A bill can start in either house. However, if the Lords refuse to pass a bill that has support in the Commons, MPs do have a way to circumvent the Lords. But this requires continued support for a bill over the course of a full year.
Aside from passing bills, the parliament, specifically the House of Commons, also determines the government. The government is made up of a series of Secretaries of State and ministers who carry out the day-to-day operations of the UK state. At the helm of the government is the Prime Minister, currently Keir Starmer, who is formally appointed by the King. The Prime Minister is provided with a residency, Number 10 Downing Street, which has become an icon of British politics and which, if you ever get a chance, is well worth a visit, though it's by invitation only.
The Prime Minister is responsible for appointing all the other government officials. This includes the Cabinet, the most senior members of the government who each hold a specific portfolio. The most important Cabinet roles, referred to as the Great Offices of State, are: one, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, essentially a fancy name for the finance minister, which is currently Rachel Reeves. Two, the Secretary of State for the Home Department, a type of security minister responsible for police, intelligence departments, counterterrorism, and immigration, is currently held by James Cleverly. And three, the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Affairs, currently David Lammy.
The Prime Minister also appoints well over 100 junior ministers who serve under senior ministers with more specific subject areas. For example, let's take this guy, Hamish Falconer. He is the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the Middle East, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. As the title suggests, he's responsible for foreign affairs with relation to a few key regions and countries. And he will report to David Lammy. All ministers, whether junior or senior, and including the Prime Minister, must be either an MP or a peer. If a Prime Minister wants to bring someone from outside into their government, they must ask the King to appoint this person to the House of Lords. This is what happened in 2023 when Prime Minister Rishi Sunak decided to appoint former Prime Minister David Cameron to be Foreign Secretary, despite David Cameron not serving in either house at the time.
The Prime Minister, and thereby the government as a whole, are appointed by the King. However, they're effectively appointed by parliament. That is because the King will appoint as Prime Minister the leader of the party with a majority in the House of Commons following a general election, or in the rare cases when there is no party with a majority, the coalition of parties that agrees to work together to form a government and select the Prime Minister. This means that the powers of the Prime Minister are granted by parliament and specifically the party that they represent. This also means that at any given time, if there is not a majority of support for the government in parliament, if, for example, there are dissidents within the Prime Minister's party that can get the numbers to oust him, well then the Prime Minister can be forced out of office. This gives significant powers to the parties.
The UK is what is sometimes referred to as a two-and-a-half party system. This is political science speak for a party system that has two major power-holding parties as well as a smaller party in the middle that sometimes serves as a kingmaker. The major parties are the center-left Labour Party and the center-right Conservative Party. Since the Second World War, every Prime Minister has come from one of these two parties. The Labour Party is currently in government, led by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and holds 398 seats, giving them a comfortable majority. Starmer and his government are considered to be moderate, or sometimes even slightly center-right, despite Labour being the main party of the left. This has led to recent conflicts within the Labour parliamentary group with some of the more left-wing members.
The Conservative Party, on the other hand, is led by Kemi Badenoch, who is the leader of the main opposition party and is therefore granted the title Leader of the Opposition. Her party currently holds 120 seats. The main opposition party runs what is called a shadow government. Sometimes this sounds shadier than it actually is. Essentially, it just means that the Leader of the Opposition appoints people to shadow each government minister and hold them to account in parliament. Badenoch is considered to be of the right of the party, especially on culture issues, though she continues to be eclipsed by members of the parliamentary group further to her right, especially Shadow Secretary of State for Justice Robert Jenrick, who looks likely to be a leader of the party within a matter of months at this point.
The "and a half" party in British politics is the Liberal Democrat Party. This is an economically and socially liberal party which was a merger of centrist former Labour members and the former Liberal Party, which had Prime Ministers before World War II. The party has once been part of a coalition government with the Conservative Party from 2010 to 2015. It is currently led by Ed Davey, who has positioned himself on the left, arguably having moved further to the left than the current Labour Party, questioning their centrist kingmaker credibility. They currently hold 72 seats.
Recently, two other parties have also emerged as serious players. The most prominent is Reform UK, a nationalist populist party led by political superstar Nigel Farage. While they only hold four seats currently, they are leading all polls. And if a general election were held tomorrow, they would probably get a plurality or even a majority of seats. While originally defining itself as a party hellbent on curbing illegal immigration, in recent months, it's positioned itself on the center-left on economic issues, especially welfare. The other emerging party is the Green Party of England and Wales, which is an ecosocialist party. At the last election, it secured four seats and posed a serious challenge to a fair handful of Labour politicians across the UK. It's on track to pick up a few more seats in the next election.
On top of these main Britain-wide parties, you also have a series of regionalist parties. The most prominent is the Scottish National Party, a pro-Scottish independence party of the left. They hold nine seats. Then there's Plaid Cymru, a pro-Welsh independence party, also of the left, holding four seats. And then there's Northern Ireland, where the political landscape is generally defined by voters' views on whether to leave the UK to join the Republic of Ireland, known as Republicans, or to stay in the UK, Unionists. This was the question that led to the Troubles, a period between the 1960s and the late 1990s that led to violence and terrorism. Views on this question normally boil down to sectarian conflicts as well. Catholics tend to favor joining the Republic of Ireland, and Protestants favor remaining in the UK. The Republican parties in the Commons are the center-left SDLP with two seats and Sinn Féin, whose seven MPs abstain from parliament entirely. The Unionist parties are the right-wing DUP with five seats, the further right-wing TUV with one seat, and the center-right UUP with one seat. A moderate Liberal Party, Alliance, has recently emerged and defines itself as neutral on the question of Irish nationalism. They currently have one seat. And then there are also a bunch of minor parties with limited influence. I've done a couple of fun videos on these if you want to check them out.
Now, that's us looked at a lot of the goings-on of the UK-wide parliaments. But what about local government? The UK operates with a relatively complicated system of local governance that varies by which part of the UK you're in. So let's start with Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, which all operate similarly. In these three countries, aside from sending MPs to the House of Commons and being represented there, they also have their own parliaments. In Scotland, this is the Scottish Parliament, sometimes referred to as Holyrood. In Wales, it is the Senedd Cymru. And in Northern Ireland, it is the Northern Ireland Assembly, sometimes referred to as Stormont.
Scotland and Wales's parliaments are quite traditional. A government must have majority support. These governments are then spearheaded by a First Minister. In Scotland, this is John Swinney from the Scottish National Party. And in Wales, this is Eluned Morgan from Labour. Their powers vary a bit. The Scottish government, for example, has powers regarding everything from justice and transport to education, health, and some degree of taxation. Whereas the Welsh government does not have powers relating to justice, but does have the other powers. Security, foreign policy, and energy policy are all reserved to the UK government. The government in Northern Ireland holds more powers like in Scotland. But a kink of the peace agreement to end the Troubles means that effectively a government of Northern Ireland is hard to maintain. That's because both the two largest parties must be in government together, and both Republican and Unionist views must be represented in government. This has led to periods of no government whatsoever in Northern Ireland.
All these three countries also have local governments made up of councillors who run the day-to-day operations within smaller council areas. Many areas also have community councils, significantly less powerful councils that operate within smaller parts of the larger council areas and which are predominantly consultative.
In England, however, local government is a complicated patchwork that varies significantly. London has the London Assembly, which has a significant degree of local power, a type of assembly that no other part of England has. London, like many other parts of the UK, also has a directly elected mayor who is responsible for executive operations. The London Assembly is then tasked with scrutinizing this mayor. Other parts of the country also have mayors known as combined authority mayors. Their authority spans across multiple council areas. Some areas are operated by one-tier councils, unitary authorities, and others operated by two-tier councils. Even the unitary authorities still have, similarly to Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland's, community councils, smaller, more consultative representation in the form of either town or parish councils.
So, for example, let's take the town of Selby in North England. They have a unitary authority, which means that they fall under the North Yorkshire Council, which is responsible for running local services like waste collection, social housing, and for running planning processes. But Selby also has a town council where even more local decisions are made, for example, about street lighting. But let's say you drive an hour and a half across to the town of Matlock. Here, aside from a town council, you'll find two other tiers of local government: the lower tier district council of Derbyshire Dales and the upper tier Derby Council. Add on top of that the fact that there is a combined authority mayor who also covers Nottinghamshire, and the whole thing becomes very complicated. And so, in recent years, there have been pushes to amend much of local government in England, hopefully tidying up a bit of the mess that is local government.
So that's how UK politics works. Of course, this was very much just a quick, simple guide for beginners. If you enjoyed this and want more content like it, perhaps a deeper dive into certain elements, leave a comment below and let me know. And if you enjoyed this video, please make sure to leave a like and click the subscribe button. Thank you for watching and goodbye.