Category: Politics

After World War 2, Britain took a long time to recover ~ rationing, for example, lasted until 1954. At the time that British Prime Ministers first had talks with European leaders about joining the ‘Common Market’ ~ the European Economic Community (EEC) ~ there were industrial strikes, power cuts, inflation and the Cold War. These talks, in the 1960s, were unsuccessful.

However, Prime Minister Edward Heath (1916-2005) eventually signed on the dotted line in 1972 and Britain joined the EEC on 1st January 1973. It is claimed that this was unconstitutional, since the people had not been consulted and Heath knew that it was planned for the EEC to become a political union, not simply a customs agreement. In 1975 Prime Minister Harold Wilson (1916-95) made amends and held a referendum asking whether people wanted to “stay” in the EEC, to which they voted ‘yes’. There were just nine western European members at that time.

In 1993 the EEC became the European Community (EC) when it widened its scope beyond the economic. In 2009 the EC became the European Union (EU) and it grew to twenty-eight members. Seven years later, the British public voted in a referendum to leave the EU and regain independence.

(Image: David Iliff at Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0)

There is a zany element in British humour, which has, naturally, crept into the supposedly serious world of politics. The Official Monster Raving Loony Party (“we’re loonies, not nutters”), seeks to shake up established views and long-held beliefs.

Its founder was Screaming Lord Sutch (1940-99) ~ not actually a lord but a singer with a rock band. He first formed a political party in 1963 and it went through a few name changes until, in 1983, it became the Monster Raving Loony Party. They could be described as anti-politics and at one time they had a rule that if any of their candidates won a seat, they would be expelled.

As of January 2019, one of their policies is to have a referendum on whether to have a referendum. Another is to mark the nation’s potholes by floating a yellow plastic duck in each one when it fills with rain. Several of their policies have come to pass, in fact. Passports for pets, 24-hour licensing laws and the lowering of the voting age from 21 to 18 were considered absurd at the time. The Party’s current policies can be seen on their website. Here they are having a ‘cabinet re-shuffle’, literally:-

(Top image: James Davies at Flickr.com / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

The Fixed-Term Parliaments Act of 2011 decreased the frequency of General Elections, i.e. the elections to the House of Commons (MPs), from once every 4 years to once every 5 years, but if the Prime Minister wanted to have one sooner than that, there would need to be a vote by MPs. The Dissolution & Calling of Parliament Act of 2022 repealed that requirement, thereby returning the decision to the Prime Minister and the monarch alone.

. Traditionally, General Elections are held on the first Thursday of May.

As regards local Elections, each Council, District or Parish can choose one of three options, which are:-

1. All Councillors are elected once every 4 years.
2. Half of the Councillors are elected in Year 1, the other half in Year 3. There are no elections in Years 2 and 4.
3. One-third of the Councillors are elected in Year 1, another third in Year 2 and the final third in Year 3. Year 4 sees no elections, then the cycle repeats.

The purpose of options 2 and 3 is to have a good mix of current political viewpoints, as well as ensuring a degree of continuity. In each option, every Councillor serves a 4-year term before putting themselves up for re-election or standing down. Local elections are also held in May.

(Image: Bill Nicholls at geograph.org.uk / CC BY-SA 2.0)

The governance of Wales has, in recent decades, been subject to three referendum outcomes and several parliamentary Acts. The result was the formation of the Welsh Parliament, or Senedd Cymru in Welsh, which was known as the Welsh Assembly until 2020. Members were previously called AMs (Assembly Members) but are now MSs (Members of Senedd).

In 1979, a referendum in Wales emphatically rejected the idea of a separate Welsh government. In 1997, however, a similar referendum gave 50.3% in favour and so the National Assembly for Wales was established in 1999, with its headquarters in Cardiff. The third referendum, in 2011, voted for increased law-making powers.

The Welsh Parliament has policy-making and legislative powers in many different aspects of Welsh society and culture, ranging from education to tourism. These are called ‘devolved powers’. The UK Government still has ‘reserved powers’, which include defence, foreign policy and nuclear energy. However, the Parliament’s powers may expand in future, in line with those of the Scottish and Northern Irish governmental bodies.

(Image: Senedd Cymru/Welsh Parliament at Flickr.com / CC BY 2.0)

The position of Home Secretary is one of the four top jobs in the Government and in the Cabinet. The Home Secretary’s responsibilities are wide-ranging and relate to all the internal affairs of the country.

These include areas such as immigration, the emergency services, drugs and even animal testing. The umbrella terms are:

• ‘the legislative programme’
• ‘expenditure issues’
• ‘security and terrorism’

The Home Secretary has overall responsibility but there is also a Ministerial team, comprising three or four Ministers and one or two Parliamentary Under-Secretaries who assist with particular departments. Five Home Secretaries (as of the date of writing ~ November 2018) have gone on to become Prime Minister, including the former PM, Theresa May.

(Image of Home Office building in Marsham Street, Westminster: Steve Cadman at Flickr.com / CC BY-SA 2.0)

A by-election happens when a Member of Parliament resigns, dies or is told to stand down for a breach of the rules. It is not unusual for voting patterns to be quite different in a by-election to those in a General Election. One reason for this is that more candidates may decide to take the opportunity to stand, each representing a different political party or independent ethos.

For example, there were fourteen candidates in the 2018 by-election at Lewisham East, whereas only seven stood in that constituency in the 2017 General Election. The winner received 11,033 votes while the lowest-placed candidate received just 18 votes.

When standing for election, each candidate is required to pay a deposit of £500, which is refunded if they receive at least 5% of the votes cast. In the case of the Lewisham East by-election, eleven candidates lost their deposits.

(Image of Lower Stoke by-election winner: Coventry City Council at Flickr.com / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

An invitation to join the House of Lords is a coveted reward for past service in Parliament or professional expertise and achievement. There are approximately 800 members at present (2018), whereas prior to 1999 there had been 1,330. This reduction was the result of The House of Lords Act 1999, which stopped hereditary membership.

Of the 800, twenty-six are Bishops or Archbishops from the Church of England. There are ninety-two hereditary peers who have retained their membership for the time being. The rest of the Lords are ‘life peers’, which means that the membership is individual and not able to be passed down to an heir. Life peerages are awarded in the Queen’s Honours List and by the Prime Minister in special circumstances.

The purpose of the House of Lords is to act as a minder for the House of Commons, scrutinising, amending and even proposing Bills before they go up for Royal Assent. They also have committees that look at a variety of aspects of government, ranging from international agreements to adult social care and the rural economy, for example. As the world’s oldest, unelected second chamber, the Lords has its critics who would wish to abolish or drastically reform it.

(Image: ukhouseoflords at Flickr.com / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

A Member of Parliament (MP) has powers given by the monarchy. Therefore, an MP represents all the people living in his or her constituency, but must swear an oath of allegiance, not to his or her constituents, but to the King or Queen and all their heirs and successors. If they do not do this, they cannot take their seat, receive a salary, or take part in any voting, as in the case of the nationalist Sinn Féin MPs from Northern Ireland.

The oath, or affirmation, also refers to ‘God’, but an agreed alternative wording is acceptable and a variety of holy books is available for different religious persuasions. The basic version is as follows:-

“I swear by Almighty God that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His/Her Majesty King/Queen [Name}, his/her heirs and successors, according to law. So help me God.“

This process must be performed at the start of every new Parliament after a General Election and every change of monarch, as occurred in 2022:-

(Image: UK Parliament at Flickr.com / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)