How does the UK's government work?

Factual Questions
1

I’m an American and while I hate to admit it, I find myself completely ignorant about how the government works in the UK. Are there elected officials and representatives? Are there term limits and big, expensive campaigns? Do you get to vote about laws and policies? How much control do you have over how things are run? Where does the royal family fit in and how much control do they have? Are all members of the royal family automatically given some level of authority? If so, how far up the chain do you have to be to get one of those positions?

I’m sure I could figure all this out with Google and Wikipedia, but I thought it would be easier to ask. Besides, even though I would like a general overview, I do have two specific scenarios in mind.

I’m thinking about our current struggle in the US with universal healthcare. To put it as basically as possible, we elected a president and a bunch of representatives who created and passed a universal healthcare bill. A bunch of people were mad about that so when elections came around again, they voted and elected new representatives who tried to repeal the bill. When that didn’t work, states took the case to court where parts were struck down. The rulings were appealed and it will probably eventually get to the supreme court where a final decision will be made. But not really because justices retire and new presidents are elected who appoint new justices who could overturn the original ruling, assuming that new representatives haven’t already been elected who haven’t already gotten rid of the bill somehow. I’m curious how this whole process would work in the UK.

The second scenario is this collective bargaining thing in Wisconsin. Representatives were elected who tried to get rid of collective bargaining rights for state workers, and they succeeded. So some people collected signatures and recall elections were held. But even though the recalls failed, they still got to try. Is this the same in the UK?

2

It doesn’t. Badum-tish.

Local representatives are elected to this and are called MPs, members of parliament. They are mostly, but not always, aligned to a political party. The biggest are the Conservatives, aka the Tories, the Labour party and Liberal Democrats. The party with the most seats in parliament can form a majority in parliament. The leader of the party with the most seats in the Prime Minister - himself just an ordinary MP, we don’t vote directly for the PM unless he’s running in your constituency.

If no party gains a majority you get what’s called a hung parliament, two parties often form together and create a majority - a coalition government like we have now - the Conservatives and Lib Dems forming the present government.

Loads more too it on the wiki page (like the role of Her Majesty the Queen - she rubber stamps legislation and opens parliament, and the House of Lords - peers are appointed here rather than MPs being elected to the House of Commons), but that’s the basics. Parliament has a website explaining how it works, its relationship with Her Maj and voters.

3

Sorry for double posting, to address your specific questions…

The only body that can repeal Parliamentary law is Parliament itself. From the horses mouth:
“Parliamentary sovereignty is a principle of the UK constitution. It makes Parliament the supreme legal authority in the UK, which can create or end any law. Generally, the courts cannot overrule its legislation and no Parliament can pass laws that future Parliaments cannot change. Parliamentary sovereignty is the most important part of the UK constitution.”
http://www.parliament.uk/about/how/sovereignty/

If people are sufficiently pissed off about a law they can lobby their MP to vote for a repeal or vote against the bill becoming an act in Parliament.

No recall elections as of yet (there are by-elections in individual constituencies if an MP needs to step down for whatever reason), but we do have motions of no confidence if a government begins to lose the support of MPs (people’s elected representatives).
“The government needs to retain the confidence of a majority in the House of Commons. If the House votes to indicate that it has no confidence in the government, either by defeating the government on a confidence motion or by defeating a policy that the government has indicated is a ‘matter of confidence’ then the government would call a General Election.”
http://www.parliament.uk/about/how/role/parliament-government/

4

In the history of the Parliament, there ever been a coalition of three or more parties?

5

Yes, of course. The UK, like the rest of the Western world, is a democracy.

They’re not as big and expensive as in the US, but there are campaigns. They don’t last as long as in the US, either - a few weeks of concentrated effort near to election time rather than the two-year run-up you guys have.

I’m not sure I understand that question. We vote for our representatives (MPs). They vote in Parliament. If we don’t like how they represent us, we vote for someone else.

The Queen is Head of State. You in the US combine Head of State and Head of your Executive Branch. We separate out Head of State from the government.

None at all. It’s a symbolic position.

No, none.

There’s “theoretical” abilities to, as head of state, to refuse to assent to a bill or disband parliament, but using them would create a constitutional crisis and end the monarchy. In practice, they have no power at all. The Queen, though, is likely the world’s most experienced and well-connected diplomat.

Dunno. I’m not familiar with your situation in Wisconsin and, unfortunately, your description hasn’t helped much. You mean unions?

6

Gallan’s question (I think) isn’t really about unions. He’s asking whether you guys have recall elections, or something like them.

Basically, in some US states, citizens can force a current office holder to run (stand) for election again, early, if they petition for it and collect enough signatures from registered voters. Details of what’s required vary between states.

7

Is there a GQ-acceptable way to ask how someone in a 1st world, English-speaking country with internet access can have absolutely no idea how the British Government works, or if it’s even a democracy?

Not intended to be anything personal against the OP, but it’s something (total lack of knowledge about the UK, which has pretty strong historical ties to the UK) that seems to pop up on the boards often enough to warrant a strongly raised eyebrow IMHO.

8

No, nothing like that in the UK. There’s no mechanism for it.

In the UK, election dates are not generally known in advance. When he thinks the time is right, the Prime Minister advises the Queen to dissolve parliament and hold a general election. There has to be a general election at least every five years (though Parliament could pass a statute to extend this time) but, within that time, the PM decides when to “go to the country”. This is one of the reasons why election campaigns are not long-drawn out; nobody really knows until about four to six weeks before the date when the voting will be.

Right, if the government is doing really badly, individual MPs begin to panic, because they reckon that, the longer this goes on, the more likely they are to lose their seats at the next election. If they get unhappy enough, they try to do something to change the course of events, usually by dumping the party leader and choosing a new one. When that happens the dumped party leader resigns as Prime Minister and his successor is appointed, and he gets to appoint new government ministers, (or the same government ministers, if he wishes). Thus a change of government can result without the need for a recall election affecting legislators.

If things get bad enough, individual MPs may defect from the party for which they were elected, and sit as independents, or join another party. And if this happens on a large enough scale, the governing party can lose its majority in parliament. This would normally result in the Prime Minister advising the Queen to dissolve parliament and call a general election. It could, though, result in another party which now has a majority forming a government without an election, though I think this would be controversial and there would be pressure to hold an early election to give the new government an opportunity to seek a mandate.

But the bottom line is that the UK executive is not chosen by the people; it’s chosen by parliament. And therefore the procedure for dismissing the executive is not a recall election, but action by parliament.

9

Martini Enfield: In American schools, we learn a lot about how the US works. A lot. We also learn how it’s the best and most amazing kind of government anywhere. We (at least a large subset of Americans) learn absolutely nothing about other countries’ systems. Further, we hear about the American Revolution an awful lot, and how we overthrew the tyranny of the wicked George III. At least when I was in school, it wasn’t very well contextualized: this king and all kings were BAD.

I’m rather over-educated if anything, but I was easily as ignorant about the OP re: parliamentary-style democracies until I moved to the UK in my 30s and was confronted with my ignorance. It’s just one of those blank, gaping holes in the typical American educational curriculum.

10

I dunno. How the British government works is not normally a question of much interest to people outside Britain. If you don’t live in a parliamentary democracy, you have no real occasion to find out about parliamentary democracy.

Most of the English-speaking world, of course, does live in a parliamentary democracy, but USonians are an exception. My experience of the US media is that thy’re not that good at explaining the background to what goes on outside the US, so it doesn’t amaze me that this is knowledge which people in the US don’t pick up in the ordinary way of things.

11

I don’t expect the average punter to understand the intricacies of Parliamentary Democracy- plenty of people (most of them, perhaps) who live in one can’t do that- but not knowing if the UK has a democratic government or elections at all?

What do you think the average response would be if a Briton made a post asking if the US was a democracy with elections and so on? I suspect it’d be a lot different to this thread so far, that’s for sure.

12

You have to admit your customs can be a little baffling.

(Can I just add that this is the third time I’ve appeared in this thread?)

13

There is a mechanism to petition Parliament on issues, the current government has introduced an online version.

On more than two parties making a coalition, sure has. In World Wars I (and the aftermath, including the four (!) party clusterfuck in the '30s) and during World War II the government was comprised of members from more than two political parties.

14

Perhaps my question was (very) badly worded, but I didn’t intend to ask* if* the UK had a democratic government. I knew the UK had a monarchy, but I didn’t understand how that monarchy fit into the big picture. Was everyone in parliament elected or were some appointed there by the queen? I was sure the prime minister was elected, but I didn’t know how. And despite years of election coverage for the presidential election, to include coverage from UK news sources, I don’t remember ever hearing a peep about an election in the UK in the course of my daily life. I was clueless, and I’ll readily admit it.

But that’s why I asked the question, and got a very detailed and informative response. Thanks!

15

American here with some general knowledge.

So the House of Commons is the only elected chamber? Does the House of Lords have any power? That’s hereditary and they aren’t elected, right?

And yes, I can vouch for the reasonability of an American not understanding the British system. They have a bicameral legislature like ourselves, but of course that’s different. The concept of a Head of Government would sound ludicrous to us, and I am sure very few of us grasp that there is even a difference between Head of Gov’t and Head of State…

16

Technically life peers in the House of Lords (the Upper, but ironically the arguably less important house of the Houses of Parliament - the other being the House of Commons) are appointed by Her Majesty on the advice of the Prime Minister.

The Queen also formally invites the Prime Minister to form a government in the first place, an act charmingly known as kissing hands.

The Prime Minister is elected, but as an ordinary MP. The current PM, David Cameron, is MP for Witney, a constituency in Oxfordshire. So, unless you’re a registered voter there you will not have directly voted for him. The previous PM, Gordon Brown, became PM without any kind of election (besides internal party procedure and the election to make him an MP in the first place - in Brown’s case in Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath).

17

Yes, yes, partially, respectively.

Only the House of Commons is elected. The House of Lords does indeed have power (though much less); in the past, when it was more a matter of inheritance, and still today, this largely means it’s going to be more conservative than the Commons. But over the last few decades they’ve decreased both in power and the extent to which members get their position due to inheritance. Nowadays, rather than awarding a title to someone which gets passed down through family, you’ll tend to get “life peers” - you get a title, but it dies with you. Another exception is that the most senior CofE bishops get a seat. But by and large, the majority now are by appointment, which takes the form of the usual wording of “by her majesty’s pleasure, on advice from her government”; i.e. the government of the time decides. There’s been an attempt to try and make people “earn” their seat - so notables in the sciences, humanities, and the like might find themselves offered a peerage so they might add useful knowledge from their field. On the other hand, there have been scandals in the past of the “cash for honours” type; people who have been awarded things by the government, including Lords seats, thanks to them donating a lot of money to the government’s party.

A little bit editorialising, but I think it’s worth pointing out; occasionally, people from non-monarchist countries will question the weirdness of having a head of state in the Queen (or whoever it happens to be at the time), with questions as to how we can submit to having an unelected leader, not fully understanding her lack of actual power (or simply on the basis of principle). Such opinions are, I would say, much more relevant to those seats in the Lords which are still heriditary, and I would say that the cutting down on heriditary peer numbers of the last few years would indicate that by and large that’s a position supported by a lot of Britons. I make no defense of our having them.

18

They do get covered sometimes.

The UK’s 2010 election made US headlines, although that one was more interesting than usual because of the split vote, the Labour party getting routed, and the rare need to form a coalition.

The Labour Party’s ascendancy in 1997 made a few headlines, because it was the first time they’d been in charge in 18 years.

Thatcher’s ouster in 1990 was also big news, partly because it came as such a surprise (to most Americans anyway), and also because she was so well known here. She was also fairly popular here, although we didn’t have to live with her domestic policies.

19

Originally the House of Lords was (largely) hereditary, and it had equal power with the House of Commons, so that all legislation had to be acceptable to both houses in order to pass. However neither of these things is true today.

The idea was that the nation was divided into Lords and Commons. The Lords were a small enough class that they could all participate in the House of Lords. The Commons were numerous, and therefore only selected representatives of the Commons participated in the House of Commons.

The Lords were largely hereditary, but there was (and still is) a class of “Lords spiritual” whose status came from the office they occupied - bishops and abbots. They were members of the House of Lords for as long as they held their ecclesiastical offices (which was usually for life). With the dissolution of the monasteries in the English reformation the abbots disappeared from the House of Lords, but the bishops remained. As Britain came to tolerate other religions apart from the established church, however, their bishops and other leaders did not come to be considered Lords spiritual, and they never took part in the House of Lords. In the nineteenth century the Church of England began to create new dioceses and increase the number of bishops. Rather than see the number in the House of Lords increase a quota was introduced; membership of the House of Lords was confined to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Archbishop of York, the Bishop of London and a set number of other bishops, to be elected by the bishops as a whole. That is still the position today.

In the early twentieth century a Liberal government found the House of Lords threatening to block progressive legislation - higher taxes, universal social insurance, that kind of thing - and threatened to create numerous additional peers to get its agenda through. There was a political crisis and a stand-off for a while, and eventually the matter was resolved with the passage of legislation which reduced the power of the House of Lords. Instead of being generally able to prevent legislation, in a wide range of areas its powers were limited so that it could delay it, but ultimately not prevent it.

In, I think, the 1950s the practice of appointing “Life peers” was introduced; people who were granted a non-hereditary peerage and had seats in the House of Lords for their own lives, but who were not succeeded by their heirs. Fairly soon the life peers came to outnumber the hereditary peers in the House of Lords.

There matters remained until about ten years ago, when further reforms removed the rights of hereditary peers to sit in the House of Lords. Instead the hereditary peers get to elect some of their number to sit in the House. (And even this, I think, may be a temporary arrangement).

So the current position is:

  • The House of Lords is largely made up of members who are appointed for life. They are appointed on the advice of the Prime Minister of the day, but they will hold office after he has left.

  • A small part of the House consists of hereditary peers elected by the other hereditary peers.

  • A small part of the House consists of Bishops of the Church of England.

  • The House can delay legislation, but not ultimately prevent it. There is a convention that it does not even delay legislation which represents the implementation of a manifesto commitment of the party which wins a general election.

  • It sees its function as a revising chamber, able to consider legislation without the pressure of an impending general election. It seeks to improve draft legislation, or have it withdrawn, by a combination of arguments on the merits, and threatening to delay the legislation if it is not improved.

20

The House of Lords is a tricky beast even for natives, so bear with us.

Unlike the House of Commons, where you just have one type of MP elected (who can hold various positions like Speaker and what have you), you have three types and different methods of becoming a member of the Lords. The first is the life peer, appointed to their position for life - officially by the Queen, on the Prime Minister’s recommendation. Traditionally ex-Speakers of the House of Commons become life peers. There are 26 senior bishops of the Church of England who sit in the Lords (out of about 830 members), and following reforms there are 92 internally elected peers who used to be hereditary (that was phased out in 1999). Parliament’s website gives a rundown on how you become a Lord.

The role of the House of Lords is scrutinising bills passed up from the lower chamber, the House of Commons, before approving the bill and allowing it to become an Act of Parliament and given Royal Assent (the rubber stamp the Queen gives every piece of legislation - she can technically withhold it, but it hasn’t been done since 1707). The House of Lords isn’t as important as it used to be, there used to be Prime Ministers from the upper house but it is unheard of these days. If the Commons passes the same bill in two consecutive years it goes through no matter what the Lords think, and finance bills aren’t subject to Lords scrutiny.

Ninja’d by UDS!