It United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland present a particular political system. It consists of 4 countries ((England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) with a common king, which have been united for centuries due to conquests, alliances and dynastic unions. This British political system is must that all of us living in the UK should know.

An atypical constitutional monarchy

English is Constitutional monarchywhere Queen Elizabeth II acts as Head of State while the Prime Minister (Boris Johnson) is the Head of Government, who is responsible for the executive.

Interestingly, english constitution unwritten, that’s what is called a Constitution’not encrypted’. It consists of an accumulation of laws, court decisions, international treaties and parliamentary conventions. The jurisprudence produced by all these sources is equivalent to a written constitution of the continental type (such as: German, French or Spanishfor example).

This difference implies that parliamentby passing laws, you can change the Constitution without having to go through a specific process – (unlike in Spain, where there are 2 procedures each more complex to reform the Law of the Law) known as ‘parliamentary sovereignty’. There is also no constitutional court therefore, the Parliament itself and the Supreme Court are responsible for sharing these functions.

Officially known as Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Irelandthat The British Parliament is bicameral. It consists of two chambers commonly known as the lower chamber (the general) and the upper house (i.e. gentlemen). The two of them met at westminster palace.

House of Commons

It The House of Commons is a fundamental part of the British political system. consist of 650 Members of Parliament (MP) are elected by universal suffrage in single-member constituencies with a simple majority, principally every 5 years. That is, the UK is divided into 650 (approximately) equal constituencies, the sphere of political parties one candidate in each district and finally the candidate with the most votes is the district’s representative in the House of Commons.

House of Lords

It manor house it is also the key to understanding the British political system. This is governed by another dynamic: does not have a fixed number of members and this They are not democratically elected. As of 2010, this chamber has 733 members appointed by the King on the recommendation of the Prime Minister..

there is two kinds of God, spiritual and temporal. The Spiritual Lords are 26 bishops representing the high hierarchy of the Anglican church; Temporary masters are in turn of two types: for living (the majority) or hereditary which, after successive reforms, only a few remain.

two rooms they do not have equal weight in decision making. Previously the two rooms had symmetrical power, that is, for statutory approval, a majority must be obtained in both: first the approval in the Commons and then the assent of the Lords. With Act of Parliament 1911 The House of Lords loses the ability to veto laws; he still retains the ability to stop legislation for one year, though his role is primarily advisory.

British devolution

It great Britain it was a very politically centralized country to date; During the 1990s, Tony Blair’s Labor government initiated a process called return through which some executive and legislative powers are “returned” to the other states that make up the empire: English, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Decentralization is carried out from the ground up, with regions asking for the kind of power they wish to exercise. As a result, the level of self-government of these territories varies from one to another.

In Spain, the process is reversed, from top to bottom, with the State in charge of distributing and regulating power (commonly called ‘Coffee for everyone’with some peculiarities such as regional laws in Navarra and the Basque Country or Catalan civil law).

How was England divided?

• ‘Greater London’: the capital city and its metropolitan area is home to almost 9 million people, half immigrants. This is practically a city-state in England. For this reason, London is the only region in the UK to benefit from a return authority that gives broad administrative powers to local authorities.
• Scotland: Following the entry into force of the Scotland Act 1998, the Scottish Parliament as a regional legislature. Competencies in other areas such as education, health, finance, civil administration, cultural and language policy were also restored.
• Wales: your process return it parallels the Scottish one, although it started a little later in 1999. The level of Welsh self-government, supported in regional plebiscites, is less than that of Scotland.
• Northern Ireland: island fragment belongs great Britain life a rather specialized process for achieving self-government. After decades of a certain degree of self-government, especially at the hands of the Anglican community to the detriment of Catholicism, the period known as Problem encourage a paradigm shift that is more in line with regional social realities. formalized in Northern Ireland Act 1998Local self-government covers areas such as taxation, social coverage and legislative powers (collected in .) assembly). The distribution of power between groups is now more equitable.
• Crown Dependencies: They are considered crown dependencies. islands sweater, Guernsey you Man. The correct administrative term is Bailiwick. Due to their small size and geographical location, these enclaves have a wider range of powers than other municipalities.

British political system: two-party system in decline

The British political system is sometimes defined as a two-party regime in the hands of Labor on the one hand and Conservatism on the other. This distribution does not represent the realities of British politics, it is the cause of certain electoral systems, in particular the type of constituency (533 constituencies in England, 59 in Scotland, 40 in Wales and 18 in Northern Ireland). Results of, a greater parliamentary majority is obtained in exchange for a less representative parliament.

Political parties, unlike in Spain, do not present lists for each constituency. They nominate a candidate, one in each constituency in which they compete. Once parliament is elected, residents of each constituency can submit complaints or petitions to members of parliament in their district.

Total 10 political parties has reached parliamentary representation (and an independent deputy). Of these formations, only two were able to muster a sufficient number of representatives to form a stable majority: Conservative party and Labor Party.

Recently, Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) and party Liberal Democrat they have managed to increase their number of representatives to the point where they can be considered a ‘hinge party’ (a party that, with their support, is able to give an absolute majority to a third party).