UK Political System and Risks

This assignment examines the political system of the United Kingdom. It explores the structure of the UK's government, highlighting the role of the monarchy, Prime Minister, Parliament (House of Commons and House of Lords), and cabinet. The report delves into the influence of political parties like the Labor Party and Conservative Party and analyzes the concept of a 'sovereign parliament.' Additionally, it discusses the impact of political risks on parliamentary and legislative processes within the UK.

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The report talks about the political system of the United Kingdom. It tells that how
political risks affect the parliament and legislative of the country. The political system of United
Kingdom is a multiple party system. The two largest political participation of the parties have
been the Labor Party and the Conservative Party. The UK has a democratic parliament. It has a
constitutional monarchy within it. The head of state is called as a king or queen and the head of
government is known as the Prime Minister (Sundquist, 2011). The Members of Parliament are
the one who stands in the elections in order to get the seat in parliament, through the voting
system where votes are given by the citizens of the country. There is not even a single
constitution written in the political books of United Kingdom. “Constitution” refers to the set of
rules set by the government. The constitutions are written not on a formal document but it is
designed in various sources consisting statute law, case law made by the judges and laws made
by international treaties (Wren, 2013).
Politics in the United Kingdom has made its existence by forming a constitutional
monarchy; it states that the supreme power of making decisions for the state is given to the
monarch. The Prime Minister of this constitutional monarchy is considered as the head of
government. The UK’s cabinet is an official model which consist senior government ministers
that are chosen by the prime minister. The title given to the members of government is
“Secretary of State”. There are two chambers where the powers of legislative assembly are
vested. They are considerably known as House of Lords and House of Commons. The judicial
party is an independent entity of the execution and legislation. Supreme Court is the highest
court of the country. The formal members of United Kingdom sit together in the cabinet of these
two houses of parliament of UK. The parliament democracy of UK states that the members of
the government are also the members of any one house among the two. The House of Lords has
three types of members, Bishops from the Church of England, nobility knew as British honors
system and Law Lords considerably known as Judges. The members of House of Lords are not
elected nor appointed as advised by the Prime Minister. It is the decision of the Queen itself. The
House of Commons members are elected democratically. They form a different political party.
The elections of the United Kingdom for such parties are held within a tenure of every 5 years.
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This rule although is not met much. (Castells and Kumar, 2014). The government of UK has
direct accountability and it is easily answerable to the people. The power is given to the party
who governs for that time because the majority of members are present in the House of
Commons. The unitary system of government in the UK is a system where the major power is
put in the center. The civil services of UK act in an impartial manner and are not changed with
the changing of government. The work of civil servants is to serve the government ministers of
the day (Semetko, Blumler, Gurevitch, Weaver and Barkin, 2013). This means civil servants will
also work for the other opposing parties after the rule of the current party gets over. Each
political party of UK parliament or assembly has elected political party. There are many
ministers in the government of the United Kingdom exclusively known as “ministry of Defense”.
These are controlled by the state secretary and cabinet members (Favell, 2016). They are also
supported by the junior ministers. In the United Kingdom, the center of the system of politics is
the parliament. It is responsible for making the decisions and framing the rules and regulations.
The UK Parliament follows the motto of ‘sovereign parliament’ which states that the legislative
body of parliament has ‘absolute sovereignty’. It stands supreme than all the other government
bodies. This is the reason why there is no single constitution written. It goes opposite to the
judiciary (Almond and Verba, 2015).
The United Kingdom functions within the country by following all the norms and
discipline. The members of the parliament are selected by the citizens of the country by giving
votes in elections. They have the freedom to vote whoever they wish to. There is no compulsion
put on them as it is considered as an illegal activity. The citizens have right to choose their type
of government. Parties cannot force them to give votes. This shows the country follows the
democratic rights given to them. The results of the elections are completely unbiased and the
representative is selected from the majority. The UK Parliament in London is the spirit and mind
of the political system in Britain and it is the legislative body for the British and the UK in a
foreign country.
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References
Almond, G.A. and Verba, S., 2015. The civic culture: Political attitudes and democracy in five
nations. Princeton university press.
Castells, M. and Kumar, M., 2014. A Conversation with Manuel Castells. Berkeley Planning
Journal, 27(1).
Favell, A., 2016. Philosophies of integration: Immigration and the idea of citizenship in France
and Britain. Springer.
Semetko, H.A., Blumler, J.G., Gurevitch, M., Weaver, D.H. and Barkin, S., 2013. The formation
of campaign agendas: A comparative analysis of party and media roles in recent American and
British elections. Routledge.
Sundquist, J.L., 2011. Dynamics of the party system: Alignment and realignment of political
parties in the United States. Brookings Institution Press.
Wren, A. ed., 2013. The political economy of the service transition. Oxford University Press.
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