Questions tagged [united-kingdom]
Questions relating to the government and politics of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. If your question relates to a specific country within the Union, be that England, Scotland, Wales, or Northern Ireland, use with the relevant tag.
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Why does quickly calling for new elections change anything in parliamentary based systems [closed]
For context I understand the American political system quite well, and have a somewhat weaker understanding of how the UK government works. With this disclosure...
My understanding is that the basic ...
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What is the distinction between two Ministers for Women and Equalities in the current UK government?
Currently the government contains a Minister for Women and Equalities and a Minister of State for Women and Equalities https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ministerial-appointments-july-2024.
What is ...
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How does one know which UK cabinet minister holds any particular power to make delegated legislation?
UK Acts of Parliament frequently confer powers to enact delegated legislation on "The Secretary of State". But how does one tell which Secretary of State holds any particular delegated-...
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Membership and offices in the Privy Council – what is the significance of the different predicates used to describe the transactions?
One of the answers to the question How does anyone know for sure who the Prime Minister is? contained a link to the list of approved orders and business transacted in the July 6, 2024 session of the ...
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How does anyone know for sure who the Prime Minister is?
France is famous for tourism, food, and above all, bureaucraty.
When a Prime Minister is heading out, there is a decree saying so. When a new Prime Minister is appointed, a decree is published in the ...
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Keir Starmer: the Rwanda deportation scheme is "dead and buried". Is this more of a prediction, statement of policy, or statement of fact? [closed]
The BBC's July 7, 2024 Last two migrants bound for Rwanda to be bailed, home secretary says contains the following:
On his first full day as prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer confirmed the Rwanda ...
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Why are UK General Elections near the start of a month?
The dates of the most recent UK General Elections were:
Thu 4 Jul 2024
Thu 12 Dec 2019
Thu 8 Jun 2017
Thu 7 May 2015
Thu 6 May 2010
Thu 5 May 2005
Thu 7 Jun 2001
Thu 1 May 1997
Thu 9 Apr 1992
Thu 11 ...
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Why did Nigel Farage choose Clacton as the constituency to campaign in?
Nigel Farage has now been elected as a Reform UK MP for Clacton. Did he explain why he chose to campaign in Clacton specifically, rather than any other constituency?
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2024 UK election: What connects the regions where Liberal Democrats succeeded?
In terms of systematic differences such as demography, what connects the regions that turned orange and what connects those that turned red, during the 2019-2024 UK election cycle?
Looking at the ...
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Will Labour party MPs sit on both sides of the House of Commons? [duplicate]
A characteristic feature of UK parliament is that the House of Commons is split in two sides, one for Conservatives and one for Labour, with minor parties filling some of the remaining seats (current ...
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Why do neither the UK government nor the OPCW release what agent was used for the Salisbury/Amesbury attacks?
For the purposes of this question please assume that the UK / OPCW story is largely true. Any answers along the lines of it being a false flag operation are off topic for this question.
In 2018 there ...
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Why the UK parliament doesn't just declare the UK constitutional?
Generally expected from a constitution to be a single document, describing the legal framework of the legal system, including how law can work in the country (example, machine translated).
UK, while I ...
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Why doesn't the British government simply expropriate all royal property? [closed]
In order to get the incomes from royal domains and other properties owned by the nobility.
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Why is polling data for Northern Ireland so differently displayed on national polling sites?
I understand the political climate in Northern Ireland is very different, with there being no overlap in parties and frequently very different priorities in the public mind. It is not clear to me why ...
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Is it plausible for the UK opposition to be led by a lord?
There are multiple polls predicting bad outcomes for the Tories in the coming UK general election. The worst of these, Savanta/Telegraph predicts them ending up as the 2nd largest party with 53 seats,...
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Airspace violation and nato article 5 [closed]
Russia violates NATO airspace repeatedly with attack aircraft.
Does this invoke article 5?
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Which party would benefit most if everyone voted in the UK general election?
Every time there is a general election acquaintances tell me they won't vote because their vote won't make any difference (or words to that effect). I have long since given up trying to argue with ...
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Why was the Workers Party of Britain not invited to the BBC Election Debate?
The BBC will have an Election Debate, and it just confirmed it is inviting 7 participants from 7 parties, two of which only had 1 MP in the recently dissolved parliament.
Is there a reason why the BBC ...
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Why aren't alliances and independent runs more common in the UK?
Both Australia and the UK have single-member constituency-based representative electoral systems with a similar ratio of voters per seat. However, while it is common in Australia for parties to form ...
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Why can't the UK water companies go bankrupt?
There is a New Statesman podcast that gives an answer to the question in the title. Why, instead of the tax payer taking on the ~£16 billion that the owners have saddled Thames Water with, are they ...
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Has a party in the UK ever won parliament while losing the popular vote?
It is at least theoretically possible for a party to win a majority in parliament while an opposing party wins a majority of the popular vote. There are 650 seats in Commons, and an average of about ...
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Why does the EU find the foreign agent law in Georgia against their values?
The draft law would require organizations receiving more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as "foreign agents".
The EU, which gave Georgia candidate status in December, has ...
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What is Rishi Sunak's reasoning/incentive to talk of a hung parliament, rather than a Labour majority, right now?
Since the 2024 UK local elections were held last week, Rishi Sunak has claimed that the general election result is "not a foregone conclusion", and that there may be a hung parliament at the ...
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Why did the UK Parliament not close all legal routes for appeal when passing the Safety of Rwanda act?
The Safety of Rwanda is quite broad but as per the opinion of legal experts it still leaves some routes for appeal:
Section 4(4) goes on to provide for very limited circumstances in
which a court can ...
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What options (short of abdication) might a Queen or King of England have to avoid giving royal assent, formally turning a bill into law?
The BBC's April 23, 2024 Rwanda: Why a migrant plane won’t be taking off anytime soon contains the following:
While the bill has now passed through Parliament, the quickest a flight can take off is - ...
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How does legislation "tel(l) judges to ignore a range of human rights safeguards baked into the UK's complicated constitution"? With what words?
The BBC's April 23, 2024 Rwanda: Why a migrant plane won’t be taking off anytime soon contains the following:
Legal challenges
In June 2022, the battle to put the brakes on the first flight went all ...
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In simple words, how does UK's Conservative party manage to retain dominance?
UK's Conservative party is one of two main parties and arguably dominant in the UK.
But I don't understand how did they manage to pull that off in the century XX with its urbanization. As one would ...
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What are the arguments for allowing MPs in the UK to work second jobs?
UK parliamentarians are permitted to hold second jobs unless they are ministers. Many MPs, particularly amongst the Conservatives, have availed themselves of this opportunity. For example, Jacob Rees-...
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Companies carrying out private investigations and prosecutions
For a number of month, the British Post Office scandal has been a leading item in British news largely thanks to a an ITV television drama. For those who don't know about the scandal, the short ...
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Preprinting 19☐☐ year on UK postal vote envelopes
I have just voted by post for the 2024 London mayoral and GLA elections and, as well as the usual shuffle of multiple ballot papers and double envelopes, I had to sign an envelope and include my date ...
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What is preventing the UK from stopping arms exports to Israel?
Recent polling has shown that a majority of the UK public supports banning arms exports to Israel. A recent YouGov poll showed that 56% of all UK voters support a ban whilst 17% are against a ban. ...
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Why is legal advice provided to the Government rather than to Parliament
One of the things we've all learnt over the last few years is that Parliament is Sovereign, so why (under what principle) is legal advice provided to the Government or executive rather than to ...
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British attitudes towards their country's responsibility for Palestinian-Israeli conflict [closed]
Are there any opinion polls regarding Britain's legacy/responsibility for the colonial policies in Mandatory Palestine?
The question is prompted by the mistreatment of two October 7 survivors by ...
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To which fundamental rights is the new UK government definition of extremism referring?
The UK government has updated their definition of extremism to one which starts:
the promotion or advancement of an ideology based on violence, hatred or intolerance, that aims to:
negate or destroy ...
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Would paying a candidate to defect to your party be bribery or break some other rule?
I'm not sure if this belongs here or over on Law.SE.
There are currently rumours swirling that Reform UK have paid Lee Anderson to defect to their party.
To me, this feels like it should be illegal as ...
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Does some parliamentary convention prevent Diane Abbott from speaking at this PMQs?
Diane Abbott, MP has been in the news recently following a racist verbal attack against her by a leading Conservative donor.
At Prime Minister's Questions on 13 March 2024, the Leader of the ...
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Who are the weird characters behind George Galloway in his Rochdale elections victory speech?
Recently, George Galloway won the Parliamentary by-elections for the constituency of Rochdale. In his otherwise-solemn speech following the announcement of the results, there are a few colorful ...
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What was the original context of Margaret Thatcher's quote by Nikki Haley?
In Nikki Haley's speech suspending her campaign on 6 March 2024, she said:
I have always been a conservative Republican and always supported the Republican nominee.
But on this question, as she did ...
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Has the US government said anything about forcing Apple to have multiple app stores on their devices?
The EU has passed/will pass a law forcing Apple to give users the option to switch between multiple app stores (for example, the Microsoft and Samsung app stores), but only in the EU so far. Has the U....
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Lords powers to stop a Bill - Rwanda
The Rwanda Bill is being debated in The House of Lords and Jenny Jones' speech makes clear that The Lords could stop the bill if Labour were prepared to, but doesn't make explicit, as everyone she is ...
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Is the occurrence of sexual misdemeanors amongst the UK Conservative parliamentary party exceptional?
The 2019 intake of Conservative MPs into UK's parliament numbered 365. Since then at least 6 Tory MPs have been suspended or resigned for engaging in sexual related misconduct. These are:
Julian ...
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What is the distribution of illegal acts defined by the Computer Misuse Act actually done by children in the UK?
The UK National Crime Agency has annonced that one in five children are being criminalised by the Computer Misuse Act (CMA). They warn of life changing consequences for the children involved.
They ...
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How can the ECtHR judgement on encryption be reconciled with the UK's Online Safety act?
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) recently judged against allowing law enforcement to bypass end-to-end encryption:
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) (sic) has ruled that weakening
...
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Did British prime minister Rishi Sunak unsuccessfully sit the exam for a Winchester College scholarship? [closed]
The Tatler has reported regarding British prime minister Rishi Sunak that "[no] sooner was he accepted [into Winchester College] [...,] [his] good fortune [...] foundered: he missed out on the ...
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What tech is Jaguar Land Rover + UK government looking to ban?
The BBC is reporting that Jaguar Land Rover said the technology used by criminal gangs to steal their cars should be illegal and the company was working with the government to help get laws changed. ...
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Why was an inscription commemorating Dresden's bomb deaths removed?
There was an inscription commemorating those who died from the UK and the US bombing Dresden in February 1945, when an estimated 22-25,000 civilians were killed.
Recently, according to Bild, the ...
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Did any country say that they view the British involvement in the attacks against the Houthis as supporting Israel in the Gazan conflict?
The Labour MP Zarah Sultana said: “Military intervention starting out
as limited can quickly escalate, risking a sequence of events far
larger and more terrible, and risk even dragging us into war.”
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Do the US and the UK have the right to attack Houthis?
The UN security council demanded an immediate end to Houthis attacks.
Does this give the right to the US and the UK to unilaterally decide to attack Houthis according to UN treaties and/or ...
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Are the strikes against Yemen ordered by President Biden unconstitutional?
The U.S. and British forces have launched a massive retaliatory strike against the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen (1/12/2024). The military response by the U.S. and U.K. comes after a series of drone ...
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Can the British PM formally be charged with treason?
Can the British PM formally be charged with treason, or high treason? Does the British constitution make this possible?
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