Culture of The United Kingdom - Politics

Politics

Main article: Politics of the United Kingdom See also: Politics of England, Politics of Scotland, Politics of Wales, and Politics of Northern Ireland

The UK has a parliamentary government based on the Westminster system that has been emulated around the world — a legacy of the British Empire. The Parliament of the United Kingdom that meets in the Palace of Westminster has two houses: an elected House of Commons and an appointed House of Lords, and any Bill passed requires Royal Assent to become law. It is the ultimate legislative authority in the United Kingdom since the devolved parliament in Scotland and devolved assemblies in Northern Ireland, and Wales are not sovereign bodies and could be abolished by the UK parliament despite being established following public approval as expressed in referendums.

The UK's three major political parties are the Labour Party, the Conservative Party, and the Liberal Democrats, who most recently won between them 622 out of 650 seats available in the House of Commons: 621 seats at the 2010 general election and 1 more at the delayed by-election in Thirsk and Malton. Most of the remaining seats were won by parties that only contest elections in one part of the UK such as the Scottish National Party (Scotland only), Plaid Cymru (Wales only), and the Democratic Unionist Party, Social Democratic and Labour Party, Ulster Unionist Party, and Sinn Féin (Northern Ireland).

The United Kingdom has an uncodified constitution, the Constitution of the United Kingdom, consisting mostly of a collection of disparate written sources, including statutes, judge-made case law, and international treaties. As there is no technical difference between ordinary statutes and "constitutional law," the UK Parliament can perform "constitutional reform" simply by passing Acts of Parliament and thus has the political power to change or abolish almost any written or unwritten element of the constitution. However, no Parliament can pass laws that future Parliaments cannot change.

Major British constitutional documents include; Magna Carta (foundation of the "great writ" Habeas corpus — safeguarding individual freedom against arbitrary state action), the Bill of Rights 1689 (one provision granting freedom of speech in Parliament), Petition of Right, Habeas Corpus Act 1679 and Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949. A separate but similar document, the Claim of Right Act, applies in Scotland. The jurist Albert Venn Dicey wrote that the British Habeas Corpus Acts "declare no principle and define no rights, but they are for practical purposes worth a hundred constitutional articles guaranteeing individual liberty". A strong advocate of the "unwritten constitution", Dicey highlighted that English rights were embedded in the general English common law of personal liberty, and "the institutions and manners of the nation". Important British political figures include; Emmeline Pankhurst, leader of the suffragettes which helped win women the right to vote, William Wilberforce, leading abolitionist, Robert Peel, founded the Conservative party and is also credited with the creation of the modern police force. Britain took a leading role in the movement to abolish slavery worldwide, and in 1839 the world's oldest international human rights organisation, Anti-Slavery International, was formed in Britain, which worked to outlaw slavery in other countries. The world's largest human rights organisation, Amnesty International, was founded by Peter Benenson in London in 1961.