Get to grips with the UK’s political system in our six minute politics series! For A Level Politics students, each of these blog posts is a six-minute summary of some of the main topics you will need for your exams. For university-level scholars or independent researchers, we’ve included clickable links to useful literature, primary sources and canonical scholarship you’ll need to know.
In this post, discover the UK’s constitution!
King William and Queen Mary accepted our Bill of Rights
A constitution is a set of rules determining where sovereignty lies in a political system, and establishing the relationship between the government and the governed. Usually, constitutions are codified (formalised in a single set of documents); the most famous example of this is the constitution of the United States of America.
A Product of History
The UK constitution is unusual, as it is uncodified: it is not formalised in a single document, although some of it is written. However, there are various sources of the UK Constitution: statute law (in which bills become law when they are passed by both houses and approved by royal assent), common law (interpretations and clarifications of the legal position by the courts); conventions (rules or norms that are considered to be binding, for instance that the PM should be a member of the House of Commons or what to do in the case of a hung parliament); authoritative works and opinions (e.g. May’s Treatise or the Cabinet Manual); royal prerogative (the Prime Minister’s residual powers exercised in the name of the crown) and international agreements (such as the European Convention on Human Rights).
It has developed through key historical documents, such as the Magna Carta (1215) a legal document issued by King John which guarantees certain rights. The Bill of Rights (1689) outlined constitutional and civil rights and gave Parliament power over the monarchy. The Act of Settlement (1701) legislated the succession to the throne stated that Catholics or those married to Catholics could not succeed to the throne. The Act of Union (1707) was passed by the English and Scottish Parliaments and created the United Kingdom of Great Britain.
King John signed the Magna Carta
The Parliament Acts (1911 and 1949) limited the powers of the House of Lords. The European Communities Act (1972) brought the UK into the EEC, whereas the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act (2020) withdrew the UK from the European Union.
Branches of Government
Constitutions also determine the nature of and relationships between the branches of government. These are:
(i) The legislature: Parliament (Westminster), a bicameral (two-chambers) institution made up of the House of Lords and the House of Commons.
(ii) The executive: the "core executive" is the Prime Minister and Cabinet.
(iii) The judiciary: the highest court of this is the Supreme Court.
A good way to think of these branches is that the legislature makes the law, the executive implements the law and directs policy (especially in an emergency) and the judiciary interprets and applies the law.
If the branches operate independently from one another, this is separation of powers. For instance, in the USA, the President cannot be a member of Congress. In the UK, there is integration of powers, because our Prime Minister and Cabinet are also Members of Parliament.
There can be balance of powers, as there is in the US, where the relative power of the branches of government is similar. In the UK, we have executive dominance: our Prime Minister and Cabinet are meant to dominate the legislature.
Principles of the UK Constitution
In 1885, A. V. Dicey described two pillars of government. According to Parliamentary Sovereignty, Westminster is the supreme law-maker. It can legislate on any subject it chooses and it cannot be overturned by any other authority, although it cannot bind its successors.
Dicey’s other pillar, the rule of law is a guarantee against arbitrary excesses of power, subject to interpretation from judges. This is of particular importance in the UK because the constitution is uncodified. Together, these principles ensure an appropriate balance between Parliament and judges.
Constitutional Reform
Big changes were brought in by the Blair government. Click the link to watch a useful (if a little grumpy) video looking into the effects of Blair’s constitutional reform.
The Constitutional Reform Act (2005) separated the House’s judicial function from Parliament, providing for an independent Supreme Court, an independent Judicial Appointments Commission and Conduct Ombudsman and a duty on government ministers to uphold the independence of the judiciary. It modified the Lord Chancellor’s role.
The House of Lords Act (1999) removed the seats of most hereditary peers. During the passage of the legislation an amendment was accepted, enabling 92 hereditary peers to remain until further reform is proposed.
The Human Rights Act (1998) incorporated the European Convention on Human Rights into British law, enhanced the idea of judges as custodians of civil liberties. The Freedom of Information Act (2000) guarantees access to information held by public authorities.
King George I inherited the throne as a result of the Act of Settlement
Devolution
Constitutions can be federal (in which legal sovereignty is separated between state and federal government as in the USA) or unitary (in which all legal sovereignty is contained in a single place, as in France). The UK is a devolved unitary state, in which power, but not sovereignty, is dispersed from the central government to the devolved regions.
During the 1980s, there was increasing centralisation of government, giving Westminster more power over local councils, although the UK had previously had some level of devolution. For instance, Northern Ireland had its own parliament from 1921-1972 (suspended due to the Troubles and abolished in 1973) and Scotland had its own education and legal system. Elected mayors were introduced following the 1997 Labour manifesto, which promised an elected Mayor of London.
Referenda in September 1997 endorsed the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly; these were created in 1998 and the first elections were held in 1999. The Northern Irish Assembly was created through the Northern Ireland Act of 1998 as a result of the Belfast Agreement earlier that year.
As there is no English Parliament, the problem of asymmetry was raised by the ‘West Lothian’ Question (Scottish MPs at Westminster could vote on policy for England when English MPs were not able to vote on similar matters that affect Scotland). This was tackled by English Votes for English Laws (EVEL) in 2015, but this was suspended in 2020.
Should we codify our constitution?
Flexibility: In a codified constitution, provisions are ‘entrenched,’ meaning that it is difficult to change. The UK’s uncodified constitution is flexible enough to respond to emergencies while still respecting the accumulated wisdom of the past. It could be said that codified constitutions are a form of ancestor-worship, as they embody the values of a particular time and, in the case of the US, the small group of men who write them up.
Rights: There are arguments that some values are universal and eternal, and should be protected. Codified constitutions lay out the rights of the citizen against the state; for instance the US’s Bill of Rights, the first ten Amendments to the Constitution. However, the codified constitution of the Weimar Republic did not stop the rise of the Nazis.
The Magna Carta
Balance of power: One worry is that the UK has inadequate constitutional controls over the executive, so in theory rights can be overridden by an elective dictatorship. On the other hand, codified constitutions may give too much power to unelected judges. For instance, in the US, the nine unelected judges of the Supreme Court get to tell 320 million Americans what laws they can have. In the UK, the rule of law guarantees the rights of the individual against the state, so judges can protect rights without having too much power over elected politicians.
In our next post, explore the UK executive!
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