The United Kingdom is a unitary state with devolution that is governed within the framework of a parliamentary democracy under a constitutional monarchy in which the monarch, currently Queen Elizabeth II, is the head of state while the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, currently Boris Johnson, is the head of government. Executive power is exercised by the British government, on behalf of and by the consent of the monarch, and the devolved governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Legislative power is vested in the two chambers of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the House of Commons and the House of Lords, as well as in the Scottish and Welsh parliaments. The British political system is a two party system. Since the 1920s, the two dominant parties have been the Conservative Party and the Labour Party. Before the Labour Party rose in British politics, the Liberal Party was the other major political party, along with the Conservatives. While coalition and minority governments have been an occasional feature of parliamentary politics, the first-past-the-post electoral system used for general elections tends to maintain the dominance of these two parties, though each has in the past century relied upon a third party, such as the Liberal Democrats, to deliver a working majority in Parliament. A Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government held office from 2010 until 2015, the first coalition since 1945. The coalition ended following parliamentary elections on 7 May 2015, in which the Conservative Party won an outright majority of seats, 330 of the 650 seats in the House of Commons, while their coalition partners lost all but eight seats.
Alan Milburn is a British Labour Party politician who was Member of Parliament (MP) for Darlington from 1992 to 2010. He served for five years in the Cabinet, first as Chief Secretary to the Treasury from 1998 to 1999, and subsequently as Secretary of State for Health until 2003, when he resigned. He briefly rejoined the Cabinet as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in order to manage Labour's 2005 re-election campaign. He did not seek re-election in the 2010 election.
Politics of England forms the major part of the wider politics of the United Kingdom, with England being more populous than all the other countries of the United Kingdom put together. As England is also by far the largest in terms of area and GDP, its relationship to the UK is somewhat different from that of Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. The English capital London is also the capital of the UK, and English is the dominant language of the UK. Dicey and Morris (p26) list the separate states in the British Islands. "England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, and Sark.... is a separate country in the sense of the conflict of laws, though not one of them is a State known to public international law." But this may be varied by statute.
The Electoral Reform Society (ERS) is an independent campaigning organisation based in the United Kingdom which promotes electoral reform. It seeks to replace the first-past-the-post voting system with one of proportional representation, advocating the single transferable vote. It is the world's oldest operating organisation concerned with political and electoral reform.
Unionism in Scotland is a political movement which favours the continuation of the political union between Scotland and the other countries of the United Kingdom, and hence is opposed to Scottish independence. Scotland is one of four countries of the United Kingdom which has its own devolved government and Scottish Parliament, as well as representation in the UK Parliament. There are many strands of political Unionism in Scotland, some of which have ties to Unionism and Loyalism in Northern Ireland. The two main political parties in the UK — the Conservatives and Labour — both support Scotland remaining part of the UK.
John David Penrose is a British politician serving as Member of Parliament (MP) for Weston-super-Mare since 2005. A member of the Conservative Party, he was the United Kingdom Anti-Corruption Champion at the Home Office from 2017 until 2022. He resigned on 6 June 2022 as the United Kingdom Anti-Corruption Champion due to the Boris Johnson Partygate scandal. Penrose is married to Baroness Harding, Chair of NHS Improvement and the former head of NHS Test and Trace.
Nicholas Le Quesne Herbert, Baron Herbert of South Downs, is a British Conservative Party politician and was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Arundel and South Downs from 2005 to 2019. He was Minister of State for Police and Criminal Justice, with his time split between the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice, from 2010 to 2012. On 5 November 2019 he announced his decision not to stand for re-election in the 2019 general election. On 31 July 2020 Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that Herbert would enter the House of Lords.
Politics in Wales forms a distinctive polity in the wider politics of the United Kingdom, with Wales as one of the four constituent countries of the United Kingdom (UK).
The UK Youth Parliament (UKYP) is a youth organisation in the United Kingdom, consisting of democratically elected members aged between 11 and 18.
A Cornish Assembly is a proposed devolved law-making assembly for Cornwall along the lines of the Scottish Parliament, the Senedd and the Northern Ireland Assembly in the United Kingdom.
Robin Caspar Walker is a British politician who has served as Minister of State for School Standards since 2021. A member of the Conservative Party, he was a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State serving jointly between the Scotland Office and Northern Ireland Office under Prime Minister Boris Johnson from 2019 to 2020. Walker has been the member of Parliament (MP) for Worcester since 2010. He identifies as a one-nation Conservative.
William Neil Carmichael is an English politician, and former Conservative Party Member of Parliament (MP) for Stroud from 2010 until 2017.
There are five types of elections in the United Kingdom: elections to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, elections to devolved parliaments and assemblies, local elections, mayoral elections and Police and Crime Commissioner elections. Within each of those categories, there may also be by-elections. Elections are held on Election Day, which is conventionally a Thursday and under the provisions of the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022 the timing of general elections can be held at the discretion of the Prime Minister during any five year period. All other types of elections are held after fixed periods, though early elections to the devolved assemblies and parliaments can occur in certain situations. The five electoral systems used are: the single member plurality system (first-past-the-post), the multi-member plurality system, the single transferable vote, the additional member system and the supplementary vote.
Caroline Fiona Ellen Nokes is a British Conservative Party politician. She was first elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Romsey and Southampton North in Hampshire in the 2010 general election. Elected as a Conservative, Nokes had the Conservative whip removed on 3 September 2019 and sat as an independent politician until the whip was restored to her on 29 October.
Stephen Anthony McPartland is a British Conservative Party politician and business consultant. He was first elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Stevenage at the 2010 general election.
Atta-Ur-Rehman Chishti is a British-Pakistani Conservative Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Gillingham and Rainham since the 2010 general election. He was the United Kingdom's Special Envoy for Freedom of Religion or Belief from 12 September 2019 until his resignation on 14 September 2020. He was the Vice Chair of the Conservative Party for Communities, appointed in the 2018 cabinet reshuffle. Chisthi also served as the Prime Ministerial Trade Envoy to Pakistan.
In the United Kingdom, devolution is the Parliament of the United Kingdom's statutory granting of a greater level of self-government to the Scottish Parliament, the Senedd, the Northern Ireland Assembly and the London Assembly and to their associated executive bodies the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government, the Northern Ireland Executive and in England, the Greater London Authority and combined authorities.
Natalie Jessica Evans, Baroness Evans of Bowes Park,, is a British politician serving as Leader of the House of Lords since 2016. A member of the Conservative Party, she was made a life peer in 2014 and is the first Leader of the House of Lords to serve under two different prime ministers since Lord Shepherd in 1974 and the longest serving lords leader since 1957.
Louise Margaret Haigh is a British Labour Party politician serving as the Shadow Secretary of State for Transport since 2021. She was elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Sheffield Heeley at the 2015 general election, as the youngest Labour member of that parliament. She served as Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland from 2020 to 2021.
Federalism in the United Kingdom refers to the concept of constitutional reform, where there is a division of legislative powers between two or more levels of government, where sovereignty is non-centralised between a federal government and autonomous governments in a federal system.
