United Kingdom
From The UCSC Wikipedia Trust Project
Template:DablinkTemplate:Infobox Country or territory
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (usually shortened to the United Kingdom, the UK, or Britain)[1] is a country[2] and sovereign state that lies to the northwest of Continental Europe with the Republic of Ireland to the west.
The United Kingdom is a political union made up of four constituent countries: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It occupies all of the island of Great Britain and the northeast part of the island of Ireland, sharing a land border with the Republic of Ireland. The United Kingdom is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean, and its ancillary bodies of water, including the North Sea, the English Channel, the Celtic Sea, and the Irish Sea. The United Kingdom is linked to France by the Channel Tunnel, which is located in the south-east of England.
The United Kingdom also has fourteen overseas territories, including Bermuda, Gibraltar, the Pitcairn Island group, British Indian Ocean Territory, the Falkland Islands, and British Antarctic Territory among others. The dependencies of the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, formally possessions of the Crown, form a federacy with the United Kingdom collectively known as the British Islands.
The constitutional monarch, Queen Elizabeth II is also the Queen and Head of State of 15 other Commonwealth Realms such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Jamaica.
Despite the decline of the British Empire, it remains a significant player in world diplomacy and a Great power. A member of the G8, the United Kingdom is a developed country with the fifth largest economy in the world and second largest in Europe, estimated at US$2.2 trillion. It is the third most populous state in the European Union with a population of 60.2 million[3] and is a founding member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Template:Abbr) and the United Nations (Template:Abbr), where it holds permanent membership on the Security Council. The UK is a major military power and is an acknowledged nuclear power.
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History
The Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of England had existed as separate states with their own monarchs and political structures since the 9th century. The once independent Principality of Wales fell under the control of English monarchs from the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284, becoming itself part of the Kingdom of England by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542.[4] With the Act of Union 1707, the independent states of England (including Wales) and Scotland, having been in personal union since 1603, agreed to a political union as the Kingdom of Great Britain.[5]
The Act of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain with the Kingdom of Ireland, which had been gradually brought under English control between 1541 and 1691, to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.[6] Independence for the Republic of Ireland in 1922 followed the partition of the island of Ireland two years previously, with six of the nine counties of the province of Ulster remaining within the Template:Abbr, which then changed to the current name in 1927.[7]
Eighteenth-century Britain was a key contributor to the Age of Enlightenment, with philosophical and scientific input and an influential literary and theatrical tradition. Over the next century the United Kingdom played a leading role in developing Western ideas of parliamentary democracy and capitalism with significant contributions to literature, the arts, science and technology.[8] The wealth of the early British Empire, like other Great Powers, was also partly generated by colonial exploitation, including the industrialisation after 1750 of the slave trade, with Britain's 18th century shipping fleet, the largest in the world, taking African slaves to the Americas as part of the infamous Triangular Trade.[9] At the beginning of the nineteenth century, however, after campaigns by abolitionist politicians including William Wilberforce, Britain was the first nation to permanently prohibit trade in slaves.
After the Industrial Revolution and the defeat of France in the Napoleonic Wars, Britain became the principal world power at the beginning of the 19th century. At its peak, the British Empire stretched to almost one-quarter of the Earth's surface and encompassed a third of its population, making it in terms of population and territory the largest empire in history.
During the nineteenth century the country played an important role in the development of parliamentary democracy, partly via a growing extension of suffrage through a series of significant electoral reforms, and towards the end of the century was the first nation to develop a public health infrastructure. Developments of science and the arts, building on an 18th century inheritance of figures such as Isaac Newton, and particularly its earlier tradition of literature, were influential.
At the end of the Victorian period, however, the United Kingdom lost its industrial leadership, particularly to the United States, which surpassed the UK in industrial production and trade in the 1890s, and to a lesser extent to the German Empire. As a result of gains of the late 1800s Britain nevertheless remained the pre-eminent superpower, and its empire expanded to its maximum size by 1921, gaining the League of Nations mandate over certain former German colonies after the First World War. However, from the close of World War I the United Kingdom's dominant role in international relations had begun to decline.
After emergence from the war, the creation of the world's first large-scale and international network of broadcasting , the BBC, its first experience of government by the growing Labour movement in expansion since the late 19th century, and recovery from the Great Depression in the late 1930s, Britain fought Nazi Germany in the Second World War, with its Commonwealth allies including Canada, Australia, New Zealand,South Africa and India, later to be joined by further allies. Wartime leader Winston Churchill and his successor Clement Atlee helped plan the postwar world as part of the Big Three. World War II, however, left the United Kingdom financially and physically damaged. Economically costly wartime loans, loans taken in 1945 from the United States and from Canada, combined with postwar Marshall Plan aid from the United States started the United Kingdom on the road to recovery.
1945 saw the emergence of the British Welfare State and one of the world's first and most comprehensive Health Services, while the demands of a recovering economy brought people from all over the Commonwealth to create a multiethnic Britain. Although the new postwar limits of Britain's political role were confirmed by the Suez Crisis of 1956, the international currency of its language meant the continuing impact of its literature and culture, while at the same time its popular culture found a global influence. The 1970s saw a period of economic stagnation following global economic downturn. During the 1980s, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher reduced the power of the trade unions and this, together with a substantial inflow of North Sea oil royalties, added to economic recovery.
The United Kingdom has been a member of the European Union since 1973. The attitude of the present Labour government towards further integration with this organisation is mixed,[10] with the Conservative Party favouring a return of some powers and competencies to the state,[11] and the Liberal Democrat party more positive toward the EU . A referendum on the issue is planned if and when five economic tests indicate that entry into the Eurozone would be beneficial.[12]
Government and politics
The United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy, with executive power exercised on behalf of the monarch by the prime minister and other cabinet ministers who head departments.
The cabinet, including the prime minister, and other senior ministers collectively make up Her Majesty's Government. These ministers are drawn from, and are responsible to, Parliament - the legislative body which is traditionally considered to be "supreme" (that is, able to legislate on any matter and not bound by decisions of its predecessors). The British system of government has been emulated around the world — a legacy of the British Empire's colonial past, most notably in the other Commonwealth Realms — however, the United Kingdom, along with New Zealand and Israel, form one of the three countries in the world today that does not have a codified constitution, relying instead on traditional customs and separate pieces of constitutional law.[13]
While the monarch is head of state and technically holds all executive power, they must nominate a head of government (Prime Minister) that the Parliament agrees upon. The Prime Minister is nowadays always a member of the House of Commons, the last Lord to be Prime Minister was Lord Home in the 1960s. The Prime Minister must be someone who the Monarch believes will be able to form a government with the "confidence" of a majority of members of the Commons. This usually means the leader of the party with the largest number of Commons seats, because the "first past the post" electoral system for the Commons usually gives the largest party an absolute majority. If there were no party with an absolute majority, then the Prime Minister would be whoever could form a coalition with the support of a Commons majority. This would almost certainly be the leader of the largest party in the coalition, but (conceivably) not necessarily the leader of the largest party in the Commons.
(British Antarctic Territory and Sovereign Base Areas of Cyprus not shown)
The Prime Minister appoints ministers to government posts, usually from senior members of their own party. Most ministers are members of, and answerable to, the House of Commons (particularly at their Department's "Question Time"). The remaining ministers are usually from the House of Lords, Ministers do not legally have to come from Parliament, but that is the modern day custom, and a Prime Minister who wants to bring someone into the government from outside Parliament will usually first create them a Life Peer, i.e. give them a non-hereditary seat in the House of Lords. The chief advantage put forward for the Parliamentary system of Government is this direct accountability of cabinet members to Parliament. The counter-argument is that the majority of legislators (elected to hold government to account) are (because they are in the PM's party) actually looking to the Prime Minister for personal advancement — and that most politicians (at least in the early stages of their career) appear to view the being an MP not as an honourable and status-awarding end in itself but as the route to office.
The current prime minister is Tony Blair of the Labour Party, who has been in office since 1997. At the 2005 general election, the Labour Party had a majority of 66 seats. However, it is now a 64 seat majority due to a by-election loss to the Liberal Democrats in Scotland.
In the United Kingdom, the monarch has extensive theoretical powers, but his/her role is mainly, though not exclusively, ceremonial.[14] The monarch is an integral part of Parliament (as the "Crown-in-Parliament"), and theoretically gives Parliament the power to meet and create legislation. An Act of Parliament does not become law until it has been signed by the monarch (known as Royal Assent), although not one has refused assent to a bill that has been approved by Parliament since Queen Anne in 1708.[15] Although the abolition of the monarchy has been suggested, the popularity of the monarchy remains strong in the United Kingdom. Support for a British republic usually fluctuates between 15% and 25% of the population, with roughly 10% undecided or indifferent.[16] The monarch is HM Queen Elizabeth II who acceded to the throne in 1952 and was crowned in 1953.
Parliament is the national legislature of the United Kingdom. It is the ultimate legislative authority in the United Kingdom, according to the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty (however, questions over sovereignty have been brought forward because of the Template:Abbr's entry in to the European Union[17]). It is bicameral, composed of the elected House of Commons and the unelected House of Lords, whose members are mostly appointed. The House of Commons is the most powerful of the two houses. The House of Commons houses 646 members who are directly elected from single-member constituencies based on population. The House of Lords has around 700 members (though the number is not fixed), constituted of life peers, hereditary peers, and bishops of the Church of England. (Note: The House of Lords Act 1999 removed the automatic inheritance of seats in the Lords and permitted just 92 hereditary peers to remain. The Church of England is the established church of the state in England.[18])
Since the 1920s, the two largest political parties in British politics have been the Labour Party and Conservative Party. Though coalition and minority governments have been an occasional feature of Parliamentary politics, the first-past-the-post electoral system used for general elections tends to maintain the dominance of these two parties, though each has in the past century relied upon a third party to deliver a working majority in Parliament.[19] The Liberal Democrats are the third largest party in the British parliament and actively seek a reform of the electoral system to address the dominance of the two-party system.[20]
Though many in the United Kingdom consider themselves 'British' as well as 'English', 'Scottish', 'Welsh', or 'Irish' (and increasingly also 'Afro-Caribbean', 'Indian', or 'Pakistani'), there has long been a widespread sense of separate national identities in the nations of Scotland and Wales and amongst the Catholic and Protestant communities in Northern Ireland.[21][22][23] Independence for the Republic of Ireland in 1922 provided only a partial solution to what had been termed in the 19th century the 'Irish Question', and competing demands for a united Ireland or continued union with Great Britain have brought civil strife and political instability up to the present day.
Though 'nationalist' (as opposed to 'unionist') tendencies have shifted over time in Scotland and Wales, with the Plaid Cymru (the Party of Wales) in 1925 and Scottish National Party founded in 1934, a serious political crisis threatening the integrity of the United Kingdom as a state has not occurred since the 1970s. Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland each possess a legislature and government alongside that of the United Kingdom. However, this increased autonomy and devolution of executive and legislative powers has not contributed to a reduction in support for independence from the United Kingdom, with the rise of new pro-independence parties. For example, the Scottish Green Party and the Scottish Socialist Party have gained popularity in recent years but have not significantly dented the parliamentary dominance on the three main parties.
Tendencies to devolution with the wider United Kingdom have had only little resonance in England. There is little appetite for a devolved English parliament, although senior Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have voiced concerns in regard to the West Lothian Question,[24][25] which is raised where certain policies for England are set by MPs from all four constituent nations whereas similar policies for Scotland or Wales might be decided in the devolved assemblies by legislators from those countries alone. Alternative proposals for English regional government have stalled, following a poorly received referendum on devolved government for the North East of England, which had hitherto been considered the region most in favour of the idea. England is therefore governed according to the balance of parties across the whole of the United Kingdom.
The resurgence in Celtic language and identity, as well as 'regional' politics and development, has contributed to forces pulling against the unity of the state.[26] However, there is at present little sign of any imminent 'crisis' (at the last General Election, both the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru saw their percentage of the overall vote drop, though the SNP did gain two more seats and are the second largest party in the Scottish Parliament as well as official opposition). Nevertheless, recent opinion polls have suggested that nationalism (i.e. a desire to break up the UK) is rising within Scotland and England. However, the polls have been known to be inaccurate in the past (for example, in the run up to the 1992 General Election). Moreover, polls carried out in the 1970s and the 1990s showed similar results, only to be debunked at elections. In early 2007 in line with reporting on English and Scottish attitudes towards the Act of Union, two polls, one for the Sunday Times of the 14th of January 2007 and another poll, shown on BBC News at Ten on the fifteenth of January both showed a vast majority in both countries favouring the retention of the union. Indeed, while support for breaking up the UK was strongest in Scotland, there was still a clear lead for unionism over nationalism.[27] In Northern Ireland, there has been a significant decrease in violence over the last twenty years, though the situation remains tense, with the more hard-line parties such as Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionists now holding the most parliamentary seats (see Demographics and politics of Northern Ireland).
Law
The United Kingdom has three distinct systems of law. English law, which applies in England and Wales, and Northern Ireland law, which applies in Northern Ireland, are based on common-law principles. Scots law, which applies in Scotland, is a hybrid system based on both common-law and civil-law principles. The Act of Union 1707 guarantees the continued existence of a separate law system for Scotland.
The Appellate Committee of the House of Lords (usually just referred to, as "The House of Lords")