Starter Guide to British Politics

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Parliament
In the United Kingdom, we are a Constitutional Monarchy.
This means the King or Queen who reigns does not
make open political decisions, we have a Parliament for
that: the House of Commons, the House of Lords and our
Monarch.
The House of Commons is controlled by the Government,
which is a political party that has won more than half of the
constituencies around the United Kingdom, as stated before.
The political party that wins can form a Government body
with roles such as: Prime Minister, Secretary of State and
Chancellors. The party with the second largest number of
MP’s is then known as the opposition, this is where a
shadow cabinet comes in.
The House of Lords is slightly different as its members are
not elected by the nation, they are appointed.
These two Houses work together to make laws,
debating current issues and to challenge the work of the
government in power. These, as well as our Monarch
form our Parliament.
Why is this important to me?
We are a democracy in the United Kingdom. This is
incredibly important, because you as a voter have a say
in what goes on in our country and some countries don’t
have that freedom.
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