In the United Kingdom, various titles are used for the head of government of each of the countries of the United Kingdom, Crown Dependencies, and Overseas Territories. Following elections to the assembly or parliament, the party (or coalition) with a majority of seats is invited to form a government. The monarch (in the United Kingdom) or governor / lieutenant governor (in the Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies) appoints the head of government, whose council of ministers are collectively responsible to the assembly.
The head of the British government is referred to as the prime minister, the leader of one of the constituent countries is referred to as a first minister, and the terms chief minister and premier are used in the Overseas Territories. In the Crown Dependencies, the term chief minister is used in all apart from Guernsey, where the leader is referred to as the president of the Policy and Resources Committee.
Prime Minister | Portrait | Since | Party | Ref | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Keir Starmer | 5 July 2024 | Labour | [1] |
Country | Position | Name | Portrait | Since | Party [note 1] | Ref | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Northern Ireland [2] | First Minister | Michelle O'Neill | 3 February 2024 | Sinn Féin | [3] | ||
Deputy First Minister | Emma Little-Pengelly | Democratic Unionist Party | |||||
Scotland | First Minister | John Swinney | 8 May 2024 | Scottish National Party | [4] | ||
Wales | First Minister | Eluned Morgan | 6 August 2024 | Welsh Labour | [5] |
Crown dependency | Position | Name | Portrait | Since | Party | Ref | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Bailiwick of Guernsey | P&RC President | Lyndon Trott | 13 December 2023 | Future Guernsey | [6] | ||
Bailiwick of Jersey | Chief Minister | Lyndon Farnham | 30 January 2024 | Independent | |||
Isle of Man | Chief Minister | Alfred Cannan | 12 October 2021 | Independent | [7] |
Overseas Territory | Position | Name | Portrait | Since | Party | Ref | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Anguilla | Premier | Ellis Webster | 30 June 2020 | Anguilla Progressive Movement | [8] | ||
Bermuda | Premier | Edward David Burt | 19 July 2017 | Progressive Labour Party | [9] | ||
British Virgin Islands | Premier | Natalio Wheatley | 5 May 2022 | Virgin Islands Party | [10] | ||
Cayman Islands | Premier | Julianna O'Connor-Connolly | 15 November 2023 | United People's Movement | [11] | ||
Falkland Islands | Chief Executive | Andy Keeling | 5 April 2021 | Independent | |||
Gibraltar | Chief Minister | Fabian Picardo | 9 December 2011 | Gibraltar Socialist Labour Party | [12] | ||
Montserrat | Premier | Easton Taylor-Farrell | 19 November 2019 | Movement for Change and Prosperity | [13] | ||
Pitcairn Islands | Mayor | Simon Young | 1 January 2023 | Independent | [14] | ||
Saint Helena | Chief Minister | Julie Thomas | 25 October 2021 | Independent | [15] | ||
Turks and Caicos Islands | Premier | Washington Misick | 20 February 2021 | Progressive National Party |
Politics of the Bailiwick of Guernsey take place in a framework of a parliamentary representative democratic British Crown dependency.
The British Overseas Territories (BOTs) are the 14 territories with a constitutional and historical link with the United Kingdom that, while not forming part of the United Kingdom itself, are part of its sovereign territory. The permanently inhabited territories are delegated varying degrees of internal self-governance, with the United Kingdom retaining responsibility for defence, foreign relations, and internal security, and ultimate responsibility for "good" governance. Three of the territories are chiefly or only inhabited by military or scientific personnel, the rest hosting significant civilian populations. All fourteen have the British monarch as head of state. These UK government responsibilities are assigned to various departments of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and are subject to change.
The Crown Dependencies are three offshore island territories in the British Islands that are self-governing possessions of the British Crown: the Bailiwick of Guernsey and the Bailiwick of Jersey, both located in the English Channel and together known as the Channel Islands, and the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea between Great Britain and Ireland.
The Bailiwick of Guernsey is a self-governing British Crown Dependency off the coast of Normandy, France, comprising several of the Channel Islands. It has a total land area of 78 square kilometres (30 sq mi) and an estimated total population of 67,334.
The British Olympic Association is the National Olympic Committee for the United Kingdom. It represents the four constituent countries of the United Kingdom, but also incorporate representatives from eight of the eleven inhabited British Overseas Territories, and the three Crown Dependencies, who do not have their own separate Olympics teams.
The British–Irish Parliamentary Assembly is a deliberative body consisting of members elected to those national legislative bodies found within Ireland and the United Kingdom, namely the parliaments of the United Kingdom, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the British crown dependencies. Its purpose is to foster common understanding between elected representatives from these jurisdictions.
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is a ministerial department of the Government of the United Kingdom. It is headed by the Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor. Its stated priorities are to reduce re-offending and protect the public, to provide access to justice, to increase confidence in the justice system, and to uphold people's civil liberties. The Secretary of State is the minister responsible to Parliament for the judiciary, the court system, prisons, and probation in England and Wales, with some additional UK-wide responsibilities, e.g., the UK Supreme Court and judicial appointments by the Crown. The department is also responsible for areas of constitutional policy not transferred in 2010 to the Deputy Prime Minister, human rights law, and information rights law across the UK.
The States of Alderney is the parliament/council and the legislature of Alderney, part of the Bailiwick of Guernsey. The origin of the States is unknown, but has operated from the medieval period. The States of Alderney comprises ten Members, and a President of the States of Alderney, currently William Tate who was elected in 2019 and re-elected in 2020.
General elections were held in Anguilla on 21 February 2005 to elect the seven elected seats in the House of Assembly. The Anguilla United Front, an alliance of the Anguilla National Alliance and the Anguilla Democratic Party, won the elections retaining four of the elected seats.
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.
The External relations of the Bailiwick of Jersey are conducted by the External Relations department of the Government of Jersey. Jersey is not an independent state; it is a British Crown dependency, so internationally the United Kingdom is responsible for protecting the island and for consulting Jersey on international trade agreements but it is not a British territory.
Dee-Ann Kentish-Rogers is an Anguillan politician, lawyer, athlete, former model and beauty pageant titleholder. A member of the Anguilla Progressive Movement, Kentish-Rogers has served as the Minister for Education and Social Development in the government of Ellis Webster since 2020. She has also represented the constituency of Valley South in the House of Assembly since 2020. Since 2021, she has been a Millennium Fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C.