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Concept
Politics of the United Kingdom
Summary
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 United Kingdom's parliamentary system sees executive power exercised by the British government, appointed on behalf of the monarch. This executive branch overlaps and is formed by members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom where legislative power is vested in the two parliamentary chambers of the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Asymmetrical powers are also granted to the devolved governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland within the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Parliament, and the Northern Ireland Assembly.
The British political system is a two party system. Since the 1920s, the two dominant parties have been the Conservative Party and the Labour Party. Before the Labour Party rose in British politics, the Liberal Party was the other major political party, along with the Conservatives. While 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, such as the Liberal Democrats, to deliver a working majority in Parliament. A Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government held office from 2010 until 2015, the first coalition since 1945. The coalition ended following parliamentary elections on 7 May 2015, in which the Conservative Party won an outright majority of seats, 330 of the 650 seats in the House of Commons, while their coalition partners lost all but eight seats.
With the partition of Ireland, Northern Ireland received home rule in 1920, though civil unrest meant direct rule was restored in 1972.
Official source
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