UK's System of Government

[John Picard]

May I take this opportunity to suggest the US might be better off with something similar to the the parliamentary elections for the congress? At least because it presents a much larger scope of representation. It just seems that with each turn bipartisan politics seem less and less appealing.

Not only that, but elections don't last near as long as the elections we have here. 6 weeks -- *BAM*

We also don't obsess over "checks and balances" like the Americans do. The opposition party in Parliament is very vocal, and on issues where the government needs to be 'checked' you often find members of their own side will vote against them. You don't need a complex system of who-can-veto-who to achieve political balance. To be honest, I think its ridiculous the President can just say 'nope!' to what the entire congress has decided.

The President cannot just say "nope" to what the entire Congress has decided. Congress can overrule a veto by a 2/3 majority. There is the pocket veto, but yeah.

Uh, the President *can* say "Nope" to what the entire Congress has decided by either a direct veto or a "pocket" veto. It then returns to the Congress for reconsideration, and it doesn't always pass that second time.

 

[Michael Chris]

Uh, the President *can* say "Nope" to what the entire Congress has decided by either a direct veto or a "pocket" veto. It then returns to the Congress for reconsideration, and it doesn't always pass that second time.

I suppose if you want to be absolutely strict about the wording. My point was that the Congress can override the President.

 

[Holdfast]

They have a Queen and a PM. As I understand it the Queen doesn't have much "real power" and really most of the power and ruling goes to the PM and Parliament.

Queen is Head of State. Whoever can command a majority in the House of Commons is the PM. That person is usually the leader of the party with the largest number of MPs in the HoC. Though technically the Queen appoints him and can remove him. Actually, to get really techincal, the PM is whoever can command a majority to pass a Queen's Speech in the Commons (ie pass a legislative programme for the year ahead). Another difference to the USA is that Britain doesn't have a political civil service appointed by the President, like in the USA. Our civil servants are separate, and theoretically apolitical. They report to the Cabinet Secretary, who is also the Head of the Civil Service.

To use a corporate analogy that may make understanding easier, the Queen is Chairman of the Board while the PM is Chief Executive Officer and Cabinet Secretary is the Chief Operating Officer. The analogy isn't perfect, but it sort of works.

How is/was the Queen "chosen" I presume it's because she's the daughter of the former King, so has England always been in "one family" and always continue to be? If not, how does another family become the ruling class?

Hereditary position. The ruling House changes occasionally as others have pointed out, for political/military/financial reasons at various times.

The Queen theoretically retains vast powers that she can exercise at will (so-called Royal Prerogatives). To exercise them these days would lead to constitutional chaos, but the fact that she theoretically retains them is an important and necessary feature of the system that holds the Government of the day to some account.

In practice, Britain's unwritten constitution has a system of subtle checks and balances that in practice is just as powerful (if not more so) than the USA's more overt system. Inertia is the fundamental feature of the system - the UK really doesn't like change and the system of government basically guarantees that. It may seem that the parliamentary system allows for tyrannical rule by the governing party of the day, but in practice, since the OTHER side can reverse anything when THEY get in, to actually make permanent fundamental changes is very, very hard and requires passage of incremental Acts that become increasingly hard to reverse by the subsequent Parliament. It requires at least 2, and probably 3 or more consecutive terms in power, and a very clear and enduring sense of purpose by the PM of the day. The last PM to really manage this was Thatcher. Blair was potentially on course to do it, until he got distracted by Iraq and spent a lot of political capital in that arena.

 

[stoneroses]

Basically many moons ago, the king was the boss.


Charles I tried to return to the more autocratic ways, believing that he ruled by divine right, and his will was God's will. Civil War broke out, and he was beheaded. Oliver Cromwell lead the Parliament in the absence of the king as essentially the President.

However, Cromwell's puritanical rule wasn't particularly popular, and when he died, Charles' son (Charles II) returned as monarch, but his power was curtailed. In essence, this was the start of the the constitutional monarchy, which continues today.

The Queen is the Head of State, but is a mere figurehead. The elected government has ultimate power, she is merely the rubber stamp. As for why the monarchy still exists, I think it's largely because of history, tradition, and the sense that she's better than some other elected politician on the make.

In terms of succession, the current Queen can claim descent by either blood or marriage from William the Conqueror. She became Queen upon the death of her father, George VI. Charles is next in line as her first-born child. William is next in line as his oldest son.

I hope that answers some questions. If you want more in-depth information, Wikipedia probably isn't a bad place to go.

Cromwell was a dictator not a president

 

[Ariadne]

But, I bet there is a lot more power available to the "English monarchy" than is apparently believed by the average citizen. There is more to it than just being a "figurehead"

I'm not quite sure what it would be, or even if it would ever come up, but some where in English Law there is a power base for extraordinary circumstances.

Well, English law (and its progeny in the Commonwealth) is a lot less explicit than American law - elections, for example, are whenever Parliament votes for one, instead of on a specific day of the week every four years. The principle is basically that everyone does what the Queen says, so you don't need to write a long, specific constitution.

So, in theory? She has an enormous amount of power. *But*, that is tempered by the fact that she wouldn't dare actually use it. It really wouldn't be that difficult to abolish the monarchy, if it was the politically popular thing to do.

 

[AdAstra]

And then they became monarchs of Britain... (from 1707)

House of Stuart
House of Hanover
House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha
House of Windsor (current)

The Saxe-Coburg-Gotha is also the Belgian royal house, but they were renamed "Of Belgium" to make it easier. ;-)

(e.g. Belgium's king Leopold I was the uncle of Queen Victoria)

 

[cultcross]

I'm not all familiar with current law in the UK...

But, I bet there is a lot more power available to the "English monarchy" than is apparently believed by the average citizen. There is more to it than just being a "figurehead"

This piece covers quite nicely the powers of the monarch, and the actual practical truth behidn them.

 

[Goliath]

I'm not all familiar with current law in the UK...

But, I bet there is a lot more power available to the "English monarchy" than is apparently believed by the average citizen. There is more to it than just being a "figurehead"

This piece covers quite nicely the powers of the monarch, and the actual practical truth behidn them.

Yes.

Constitutionally, the monarch's most important function is to ensure that the United Kingdom always has a government.

Under normal circumstances, this involves nothing more than accepting the resignation of the outgoing prime minister, and appointing the incoming prime minister, after a parliamentary election.

But the monarch would have considerably more discretion under abnormal circumstances. If, for example, the Prime Minister went insane, and the British government ordered its armed forces to invade Iceland and carry out a genocide of the Icelandic people, the Queen, as Head of State, could simply remove him from office, and appoint a sane person in his place. If terrorists set off a nuclear bomb in the heart of London, and killed every member of Britain's Parliament, the Queen could appoint a caretaker government and call for new parliamentary elections. If they got the Queen too, then the crown would pass at once to her heir. And so on.

In fact, the monarch's representative here in Canada, Governor-General Michelle Jean, was compelled to exercise her discretionary powers just recently.

At present, no party holds a majority of the seats in Canada's federal House of Commons. The leader of the largest party, Stephen Harper of the Conservatives, is prime minister, but must negotiate with the other parties to obtain a majority to pass legislation.

At the beginning of the year, Harper's government upset the other parties so badly that two of them formed a coalition, with the support of a third, and announced their intention to defeat the Harper's government on a vote of confidence. Faced with this prospect, the Prime Minister went to the Governor-General and asked her to prorogue Parliament--to suspend it, temporarily.

This was a really unprecedented situation. The Prime Minister's request for a prorogation was obviously selfish and politically-motivated. The Governor-General could have refused, and forced Harper to face the music in the House of Commons. But there were good arguments for granting his request anyway: the two parties who had formed a coalition, for example, actually controlled fewer seats than the Conservatives. So, in the end, she granted a prorogation.

Now, I am not a Conservative supporter, and at the time, I thought the Conservatives were being extremely disingenuous about the situation in Parliament. Their supporters, for example, were shrieking hysterically about a 'coup' and a 'threat to democracy'. One of my former students had befriended me on facebook, and invited me to join a group to "Say NO to the coalition--say YES to DEMOCRACY in Canada!" I bit his head off, and told him to learn how the parliamentary system actually works, and stop being such a drama queen. Needless to say, he hasn't spoken to me since.

But, in retrospect, I think the Governor-General's decision was probably the correct one. Had she refused the Prime Minister's request for a prorogation, Harper's government would have been defeated, and he then would have gone back to Rideau Hall and asked her to dissolve Parliament and hold an election. It would have been the same mess all over again.

Plus, I doubt if a majority of Canadians really wanted an election. And had one been called, it would have been held in a crisis atmosphere whipped up by Conservative disinformation and Quebec-baiting. Better to give Parliament a "time-out," and allow tempers to cool--which is what the Governor-General did.

If the UK's two major parties ever decline in popularity to the point that the British House of Commons becomes as fractured as its Canadian counterpart, the British monarch could easily find herself in a similar situation.

 

[cultcross]

^ Quite true. If anything, the monarch's role these days is more about 'governing' the government than the people. Making sure the political machine can survive severe 'bumps' like the one you describe. Perhaps one day preventing partisan bullshit from tearing parliament apart.

 

[J.T.B.]

This raises a question I've wondered about for a while. In the US, we have state and federal and private land. Does the UK have land owned by "the people" as opposed to the crown, and if the monarchy were abolished how much land would the ex-monarch own as private property?

--Justin

 

[What's his face]

crown land = public land.

 

[Canadave]

^ Yup. Anything owned by the Crown is considered to be owned by the people of the country.

 

[Sci]

This raises a question I've wondered about for a while. In the US, we have state and federal and private land. Does the UK have land owned by "the people" as opposed to the crown, and if the monarchy were abolished how much land would the ex-monarch own as private property?

--Justin

Well, see, there's property that's owned by Elizabeth II and then there's property that's owned by the Queen ("crown land".)

Property owned by the Queen, crown land, is basically the same thing as public land. Property owned by Elizabeth II is the property of a single individual. Balmoral Castle, for instance, is owned by Elizabeth II, while, say, the Palace of Westminster is owned by the Queen.

ETA:

Also, remember that the key to understanding the Monarchy is that what is legal on paper is not necessarily legal in reality... except when it is. The Queen theoretically has the power to appoint anyone she wants as PM, for whatever reason. But in reality, she can only appoint the Member of Parliament who is able to command a majority in the House of Commons..... except when there's no way to know who that person is (as when the Conservative Party in the 50s and 60s was in the majority but didn't have a formal mechanism to determine its own leader), in which case she has to make a guess as to who can command the support of a majority of the Commons. Or in extraordinary circumstances, such as those outlined above (the PM goes insane, the PM and Cabinet are killed, etc.).

 

[Ariadne]

This raises a question I've wondered about for a while. In the US, we have state and federal and private land. Does the UK have land owned by "the people" as opposed to the crown, and if the monarchy were abolished how much land would the ex-monarch own as private property?

--Justin

To answer your second question, most of the land she owns is not private property, and the rest is a bit fuzzy - it's hard to tell which is which. Balmoral and Sandringham are definitely private property.


Here's an article with more information.

 

[J.T.B.]

^ Thanks everyone. I found plenty of info about in online after figuring out to search for the term "crown estate." Apparently the queen has some very valuable private property, too, as you'd expect.

--Justin

 

[Trekker4747]

Ok, so... asked and answered.

Thanks, guys.

 

[Verteron]

One or two random things that people might not know:

Firstly, it's well established than the House of Commons has the power to dissolve the Monarchy and/or the House of Lords at its choosing. One reason why constitutional precedent continues (and the reason the Queen would never try to exercise direct power) is that any move against the established order would, no doubt, cause the kind of constitutional crisis that would see the Monarch abolished with a simple majority vote.

Secondly, our American friends may not be aware of how the Scottish, Welsh and NI governments work in relation to the UK Westminster parliament. Since the UK is a unitary rather than a Federal country, it's actually the case that the House of Commons holds all the power (so-called "Westminster supremacy theory" I believe) and chooses to delegate certain matters to the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly and NI Legislature but could, at any time, theoretically override or even abolish these bodies with a relatively simple vote. The constituent countries of the UK are not sovereign as such when viewed under law, only by convention.

Also interesting is the so-called "West Lothian" question which is the problem of England not having its own Parliament. A simple example is governance of Education (i.e. schools), which is a matter that the Scots/Welsh/N.Irish all consider in their own assemblies, but because England is governed directly by Westminster, Education in England is legislated on directly in Westminster. Because Westminster includes MPs from England, Scotland, Wales and NI, and makes no provision otherwise, non-English MPs therefore get to vote on English education bills not affecting people in their own constituencies because those matters are controlled by a separately elected national assembly. It's a little like D.C. before it got its own Mayor and Council -- except instead of D.C., all of England is governed this way!

You may not think this matters much, but it has been a problem -- for example take Tuition Fees -- when the government granted the universities the ability to charge higher 'top-up' fees to students, this legislation only affected English universities because the Scottish Parliament makes its own Scottish rules for their universities. But the bill was only carried by Scottish Labour MPs voting for English top-up fees that wouldn't even affect the people who voted for them. It's a bit messed up.

Labour (our current governing party) seems to be in no hurry to fix this, I suspect because their leader is a Scot (who would be barred from voting on a bunch of English issues if anything were done). The other parties seem to advocate either creating an English parliament or banning Scot/Welsh/Irish MPs from voting on 'England-only' bills but still in Westminster.

This all seems a bit wooly to me, it would seem to make more sense to have four equal, sovereign parliaments in our four nations and a 'slimmed-down' federal government to legislate on foreign policy, national transport, etc. and other issues that effect the entire country.

Ah well.

 

[Ariadne]

This all seems a bit wooly to me, it would seem to make more sense to have four equal, sovereign parliaments in our four nations and a 'slimmed-down' federal government to legislate on foreign policy, national transport, etc. and other issues that effect the entire country.

Ah well.

Then, the four parliaments can bicker over equalization payments.

 

[Goliath]

This all seems a bit wooly to me, it would seem to make more sense to have four equal, sovereign parliaments in our four nations and a 'slimmed-down' federal government to legislate on foreign policy, national transport, etc. and other issues that effect the entire country.

Ah well.

Then, the four parliaments can bicker over equalization payments.

Once they turned the House of Lords into an appointed chamber, I knew it was inevitable.

Someday, the United Kingdom will become just like Canada. Mwahahaha!

Only, with more people. And less land.

And no moose.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Well, considering that the Westminster Parliament is moving more and more towards a two party system, I don't see what point it'll have.

As Pingfah said, no it's not. The Lib dems gain ground in Parliament each election, and more and more minor parties are seeing victories at local level.

When is the last Liberal Democrat to become a Prime Minister? Actually, when was the last time in the UK that a Prime Minister had a minority government and had to form a coalition to stay in power? It's felt like every time recently that a Prime Minister has ruled, his (or her) party has held the majority in the House of Commons. But I could be remembering that wrong.

And don't give me local elections. There are third parties represented in plenty of local governments in the United States (and local governments have more autonomy than local governments in the UK so you could argue they have more influence). There are also alternative party members of the House of Representatives (or there were until recently, I can't remember if there are any at the moment) and two independents in the Senate.

Still, legislators vote as individuals, not as a party, so third party views are expressed through the parties that exist when they don't declare themselves for another party.

In a Parliamentary system, there's less checks and balances. The ruling party (or ruling coalition) has a lot more power than in the United States, where the House, Senate, or Presidency (not to mention Justices of the Supreme Court) could belong to a differing party and can act as a check on the others.

We also don't obsess over "checks and balances" like the Americans do. The opposition party in Parliament is very vocal, and on issues where the government needs to be 'checked' you often find members of their own side will vote against them. You don't need a complex system of who-can-veto-who to achieve political balance. To be honest, I think its ridiculous the President can just say 'nope!' to what the entire congress has decided.

Two points. One, Congress can override the President's veto with a 2/3 majority so, if it's an important, they can do it. But the idea is that Congress could make a rash decision and it's nice to have someone separate and impartial who could say whether or not the bill they pass is a good one. The idea at the time of the writing of the Constitution was that it wasn't just the King that was the problem, there was a legislature who was deaf to their complaints. Having both checks each other.

Second, there are how things are done now and how things have to be done. MPs often break with their party if they think things are wrong, but they don't have to. If they don't, there's no real way to stop them (that's true in the states as well, but you need to control the House, the Senate, and the Presidency in order to do this and, with elections held so often, people can change things more directly much faster). That's the point of checks. It's nice to talk about how things do work, but there's also no reason why they might not work differently tomorrow.

The Parliament Act has been invoked a mere handful of times ever. The Lords suggestions and amendments are taken seriously by the commons, and often incorporated into bills.

That's part of my point. The House of Lords is used as an argument for a check on power of Parliament, but there's no reason it has to be. Once again, Parliament could, one day, decide they don't want to listen to the House of Lords. There's nothing the House of Lords could do, is there? There's nothing limiting Parliament.

The Monarchy could always intervene, but they won't.

Actually, they can't - the Queen has no political power.

Well, the Queen has official powers. She dissolves Parliament, she appoints the Prime Minister, she calls for elections. But she does exactly what the respective parties that actually make the decisions tell her to do. In theory, she could do otherwise as well (but, in this case, she'd probably just be ignored).

And with elections only having to be called every 5 years, that's a long time of significantly unobstructed control.

One year more than you?

Members of the House of Representatives are elected every 2 years. They are directly beholden to the people they have to represent and they have a much shorter time to abuse power. The President has 2 four year terms and has to stand for election at these times, not when it's politically best for him. Senators serve 6-year terms but about a 1/3 are up for reelection every 2 years.

So the legislature is held accountable every 2 years, not every 5 like the House of Commons. The Presidency gets twice that time, but, if he's unpopular, he'll find it difficult to govern after 2 years if he doesn't have the support of the legislature (the President's actual role is much more limited than that of the Prime Minister, he's just able to exercise these duties with or without support of the legislature as a separately elected representative of the people).