Lably
Skip to content

Politics of England

  • 20 min read
  • 11 chapters

Related on Lably

Through England, European Union and Feudalism

Lab · Class 11Nomadic Medieval

The United Kingdom is one state for the purposes of the Bills of Exchange Act 1882. Great Britain is a single state for the purposes of the Companies Act 1985. Traditionally authors referred to the legal unit of England and Wales as "England" although this usage is becoming politically unacceptable in the last few decades. The Parliament of the United Kingdom is located in London, as is its civil service, HM Treasury and most of the official residences of the monarchy. In addition, the state bank of the UK is known as the "Bank of England".

Though associated with England for some purposes, the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey have their own parliaments, and are not part of the United Kingdom, the European Union or England.

Prior to the Union, in 1707, England was ruled by a monarch and the Parliament of England. Since the Union, England has not had its own government.

History

Pre-Union politics of England

The English Parliament traces its origins to the Anglo-Saxon Witenagemot. Hollister argues that:

In an age lacking precise definitions of constitutional relationships, the deeply ingrained custom that the king governed in consultation with the Witan, implicit in almost every important royal document of the period, makes the Witenagemot one of Anglo-Saxon England's fundamental political institutions.

In 1066, William of Normandy brought a feudal system, where he sought the advice of a council of tenants-in-chief and ecclesiastics before making laws. In 1215, the tenants-in-chief secured the Magna Carta from King John, which established that the king may not levy or collect any taxes (except the feudal taxes to which they were hitherto accustomed), save with the consent of his royal council, which slowly developed into a parliament.

In 1265, Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester summoned the first elected Parliament. The franchise in parliamentary elections for county constituencies was uniform throughout the country, extending to all those who owned the freehold of land to an annual rent of 40 shillings (Forty-shilling Freeholders). In the boroughs, the franchise varied across the country; individual boroughs had varying arrangements.

This set the scene for the so-called "Model Parliament" of 1295 adopted by Edward I. By the reign of Edward II, Parliament had been separated into two Houses: one including the nobility and higher clergy, the other including the knights and burgesses, and no law could be made, nor any tax levied, without the consent of both Houses as well as of the Sovereign.

The Laws in Wales Acts of 1535–42 annexed Wales as part of England and brought Welsh representatives to Parliament.

When Elizabeth I was succeeded in 1603 by the Scottish King James VI, (thus becoming James I of England), the countries both came under his rule but each retained its own Parliament. James I's successor, Charles I, quarrelled with the English Parliament and, after he provoked the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, their dispute developed into the English Civil War. Charles was executed in 1649 and under Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth of England the House of Lords was abolished, and the House of Commons made subordinate to Cromwell. After Cromwell's death, the Restoration of 1660 restored the monarchy and the House of Lords.

Amidst fears of a Roman Catholic succession, the Glorious Revolution of 1688 deposed James II (James VII of Scotland) in favour of the joint rule of Mary II and William III, whose agreement to the English Bill of Rights introduced a constitutional monarchy, though the supremacy of the Crown remained. For the third time, a Convention Parliament, i.e., one not summoned by the king, was required to determine the succession.

Post-Union politics of England

Once the terms of the Treaty of Union were agreed in 1706, Acts of Union were passed in both the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland, which created a new Kingdom of Great Britain. The Acts dissolved both parliaments, replacing them with a new Parliament of the Kingdom of Great Britain based in the former home of the English parliament. All the traditions, procedures, and standing orders of the English parliament were retained, as were the incumbent officers, and English members comprised the overwhelming majority of the new body. It was not even considered necessary to hold a new general election. While Scots law and Scottish legislation remained separate, new legislation for both former kingdoms was now dealt with by the new parliament.

After the Hanoverian George I ascended the throne in 1714 through an Act of Parliament, power began to shift from the Sovereign, and by the end of his reign the position of the ministers – who had to rely on Parliament for support – was cemented. Towards the end of the 18th century the monarch still had considerable influence over Parliament, which was dominated by the English aristocracy and by patronage, but had ceased to exert direct power: for instance, the last occasion Royal Assent was withheld, was in 1708 by Queen Anne. At general elections the vote was restricted to freeholders and landowners, in constituencies that were out of date, so that in many "rotten boroughs" seats could be bought while major cities remained unrepresented. Reformers and Radicals sought parliamentary reform, but as the Napoleonic Wars developed the government became repressive against dissent and progress toward reform was stalled.

European Parliament representation of England

When the United Kingdom was a member of the European Union, members of the European Parliament for the United Kingdom were elected by twelve European constituencies, of which nine were within England, the others being one each covering Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Gibraltar, the only British Overseas Territory that was then part of the European Union, was included in the South West England European Constituency. At the last European Parliamentary election in which the United Kingdom participated, the English European constituencies were

Post-devolution politics of England

While Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland voted for devolved legislatures in referendums in 1997 and 1998 (see 1997 Scottish devolution referendum, 1997 Welsh devolution referendum, and 1998 Northern Irish Belfast Agreement referendum) England has never had any referendum for Independence or devolved Assembly/Parliament.

The Scottish Parliament, Senedd and Northern Ireland Assembly were created by the UK parliament along with strong support from the majority of people of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and are not independent of the rest of the United Kingdom. However, this gave each country a separate and distinct political identity, leaving England (83% of the UK population) as the only part of the UK directly ruled in nearly all matters by the UK government in London, although London itself is devolved (see below).

While Scotland and Northern Ireland have always had separate legal systems to England (see Scots law and Northern Ireland law), this has not been the case with Wales (see English law, Welsh law and Contemporary Welsh Law). However, laws concerning the Welsh language, and also the Senedd, have created differences between the law in Wales, and the law in England, as they apply in Wales and not in England.

Regarding parliamentary matters, an anomaly called the West Lothian question had come to the fore as a result of legislative devolution for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland without corresponding legislative devolution for England. Before devolution, for example, purely 'Scottish' legislation was debated at Westminster in a Scottish Grand Committee composed of just those MPs representing Scottish constituencies.

However, legislation was still subject to a vote of the entire House of Commons and this frequently led to legislation being passed despite the majority of Scottish MPs voting against. (This was especially true during the period of Conservative rule from 1979 to 1997 when the Conservative Party had an overall majority of MPs but only a handful representing Scotland and Wales.) Now that many Scottish matters are dealt with by the Scottish Parliament, the fact that MPs representing Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland cannot vote on those issues as they affect Scotland, but can vote on those same issues as they affect England, caused some disquiet. Between 2015 and 2021, an English votes for English laws procedure was in place to address this.

The Campaign for an English Parliament is a proponent of a separate English parliament.

Sign in to keep reading

10 more chapters are free with a Lably account.

More in Countries and other regions

NetherlandsCountry in Northwestern Europe and the CaribbeanCaliforniaU.S. stateEnglandCountry within the United KingdomNew ZealandIsland country in the Pacific OceanSwitzerlandCountry in Central EuropeSwedenCountry in Northern Europe