The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. The House of Commons is an elected body consisting of 650 members known as members of Parliament (MPs). MPs are elected to represent constituencies by the first-past-the-post system and hold their seats until Parliament is dissolved.
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, and may also legislate for the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster in London. Parliament possesses legislative supremacy and thereby holds ultimate power over all other political bodies in the United Kingdom and the Overseas Territories. While Parliament is bicameral, it has three parts: the sovereign (King-in-Parliament), the House of Lords, and the House of Commons. In theory, power is officially vested in the King-in-Parliament. However, the Crown normally acts on the advice of the prime minister, and the powers of the House of Lords are limited to only delaying legislation; thus power is de facto vested in the House of Commons.
A prime minister,premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not the head of state, but rather the head of government, serving as the principle administrator under either a monarch in a monarchy or a president in a republican form of government.
The politics of the United Kingdom functions within a constitutional monarchy where executive power is delegated by legislation and social conventions to a unitary parliamentary democracy. From this a hereditary monarch, currently Charles III, serves as head of state while the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, currently Rishi Sunak, serves as the elected head of government.
The prime minister of Northern Ireland was the head of the Government of Northern Ireland between 1921 and 1972. No such office was provided for in the Government of Ireland Act 1920; however, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, as with governors-general in other Westminster Systems such as in Canada, chose to appoint someone to head the executive even though no such post existed in statute law. The office-holder assumed the title prime minister to draw parallels with the prime minister of the United Kingdom. On the advice of the new prime minister, the lord lieutenant then created the Department of the Prime Minister. The office of Prime Minister of Northern Ireland was suspended in 1972 and then abolished in 1973, along with the contemporary government, when direct rule of Northern Ireland was transferred to London.
The Parliament of Northern Ireland was the home rule legislature of Northern Ireland, created under the Government of Ireland Act 1920, which sat from 7 June 1921 to 30 March 1972, when it was suspended because of its inability to restore order during The Troubles, resulting in the introduction of Direct Rule. It was abolished under the Northern Ireland Constitution Act 1973.
The leader of the House of Lords is a member of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom who is responsible for arranging government business in the House of Lords. The post is also the leader of the governing party in the House of Lords who acts as the government party chairperson in the house. The role is always held in combination with a formal Cabinet position, usually one of the sinecure offices of Lord President of the Council, Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal or Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Unless the Leader is also a departmental minister, being Leader constitutes the bulk of their government responsibilities, but it has never been an independent salaried office. The Office of the Leader of the House of Lords is a ministerial department.
The Alliance Party of Northern Ireland (APNI), or simply Alliance, is a liberal and centrist political party in Northern Ireland. Following the 2022 Northern Ireland Assembly election, it was the third-largest party in the Northern Ireland Assembly, holding seventeen seats, and broke through by placing third in first preference votes in the 2019 European Parliament election and polling third-highest regionally at the 2019 UK general election. The party won one of the three Northern Ireland seats in the European Parliament, and one seat, North Down, in the House of Commons, the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
Sir Jeffrey Mark Donaldson is a British politician who has served as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) since June 2021. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Lagan Valley since 1997, and leader of the DUP in the UK House of Commons since 2019. As of 2022, he is Northern Ireland's longest-serving MP.
James Dawson Chichester-Clark, Baron Moyola, PC, DL was the penultimate Prime Minister of Northern Ireland and eighth leader of the Ulster Unionist Party between 1969 and March 1971. He was Member of the Northern Ireland Parliament for South Londonderry for 12 years, beginning at the by-election to replace his grandmother, Dame Dehra Parker in 1960. He stopped being an MP when the Stormont Parliament was suspended and subsequently abolished with the introduction of Direct Rule by the British Government.
John Miller Andrews, was the second prime minister of Northern Ireland from 1940 to 1943.
The House of Commons of Northern Ireland was the lower house of the Parliament of Northern Ireland created under the Government of Ireland Act 1920. The upper house in the bicameral parliament was called the Senate. It was abolished with the passing of the Northern Ireland Constitution Act 1973.
Shailesh Lakhman Vara is a Ugandan-British politician, who served as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland from July to September 2022. A member of the Conservative Party, he has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for North West Cambridgeshire since 2005.
Arlene Isobel Foster, Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee,, is a British broadcaster and former politician from Northern Ireland who served as First Minister of Northern Ireland from 2016 to 2017 and from 2020 to 2021 and as Leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) from 2015 to 2021. She was the first woman to hold either position. Foster is a Member of the House of Lords, having previously been a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) for Fermanagh and South Tyrone from 2003 to 2021.
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is a ministerial department of His Majesty's Government, 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 term Junior Minister, in Northern Ireland, is the name given to two positions in the Executive Office, a department in the Northern Ireland Executive answerable to the First Minister and deputy First Minister.
Julian Richard Smith is a British politician who served as Government Chief Whip from 2017 to 2019 and Secretary of State for Northern Ireland from 2019 to 2020. A member of the Conservative Party, he has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Skipton and Ripon since 2010.
In Northern Ireland, the Leader of the Opposition was the leader of the largest political party in the House of Commons of Northern Ireland that was not in the government of the day. The position was eliminated in 1972 when the Stormont Parliament was abolished and replaced by direct rule from London.
Margaret Thatcher became the first female Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition after winning the 1975 leadership election, the first Conservative leadership election where the post was not vacant. A rule change to enable the election was largely prompted by dissatisfaction with the incumbent leader, Edward Heath, who had lost three of four general elections as leader, including two in 1974. After announcing her first Shadow Cabinet in February 1975, she reshuffled it twice: in January and November 1976. Minor subsequent changes were necessary to respond to various circumstances. Thatcher's Shadow Cabinet ceased to exist upon her becoming Prime Minister following the 1979 general election.
