The Westminster model

(música) Buenas dies o buenas tardes. Welcome to this new podcast series on Comparative Politics 1, a course in the degree of Politics at the Universitat Autònoma of Barcelona. We are Lorenzo Vidalfolk. Hola, Lorenzo. Hola, Buenas dies. Good morning everybody. And myself, Margarita León, both faculty members in the politics department of the UAB. In this episode, we're going to look at two of the political systems that we study in this course. Great Britain and Germany. (música) Starting with the United Kingdom now, the Westminster model. It's the almost perfect incarnation of the majoritarian model of a strong cabinet, of one single party, of relative majority, that is the best representation of the principle of government of the majority. It gives vast amounts of political power to rule as the representative of and in the interest of a majority that is not of overwhelming proportion. A large minority is excluded from power and condemned to the role of opposition until the next election. (música) Let's introduce a little bit of history. British Parliamentaryism was created to limit the power of the monarch. At the end of the 18th century, the British Parliament was an oligarchic body integrated by a small group of aristocrats. The members of the House of Lords were designated by the King. Members of the House of Commons were chosen throughout a very limited shufra. The Parliamentary Acts of 1919 and 1949 were a number of laws that progressively strengthened the representative and power of parliament, consequently weakening the power and representation of the monarchy. So compared to the majority of political systems in Europe, the British one did not have to break substantially with the previous regime to make the transition to a consolidated democracy. They were, after all, the winners of the Second World War. So is this the reason why the Constitution is not written? Precisely because there has never been a foundational moment where the country had to break from its past and build a new democracy. There was never the need to start a constitutive process. There has always been a balance between tradition and change. Very different to the German Constitution, for instance, which was put in place after the Second World War with the strong purpose of building a new regime that would prevent the horrors of Nazism from happening again. This is London, the Prime Minister of the Right Honourable Winston Churchill. Yesterday morning, at 2.41 a.m., at General Eisenhower's headquarters, General Gerald, the representative of the German High Command, and of Grand Admiral Dernitz, the designated head of the German State, signed the act of unconditional surrender of all German land, sea, and air forces in Europe to the Allied Expeditionary Portance and simultaneously to the Soviet High Command. Austritance will end officially at one minute after midnight tonight, Tuesday the 8th of May. So is this also the reason why the monarchy in the UK is not as contested as it is in other countries? So see that the Queen in the UK is the head of the executive and judicial powers. She's also a member of the legislative. She's commanding Chief of the Army and Supreme Governor of the Anglican Church. The monarch has the right to be consulted, to encourage and to warn the government. So as head of the state, the Queen has to remain neutral with respect to political matters, but she does have important ceremonial and formal roles in relation to the government in the UK. The Queen nominates the Prime Minister. It also nominates judges. And this is in line with tradition. It does not seem to be as controversial indeed as in so many other democracies. OK, so now we'll go through the main features of the Westminster model. Following Lifehurt's chapter two, we identify the following characteristics. The first characteristic is the concentration of executive power in one party and with bare majority cabinets. The most powerful organ of British government is the cabinet. It is normally composed of members of the party that has the majority of seats in the House of Commons. And the minority, so the losing party, is not included. Coalition cabinets are very rare. Because in the British two parties system, the two principal parties are of approximately equal strength. The party that wins the election usually represents no more than a narrow majority. And the minority is relatively large. The second feature is cabinet dominance. In parliamentary democracies, the cabinet is dependent on the confidence of parliament. In theory, because the House of Commons can vote a cabinet out of office, it controls the cabinet. But only in theory, because in reality, the relationship is actually reversed. Because the cabinet is composed of the leaders of a cohesive majority party in the House of Commons, it is normally backed by the majority of the House of Commons. And it can confidently count on a staying in office and getting its legislative proposals approved. The cabinet is clearly dominant vis a vis parliament. In reality, what causes the dominance of the executive is not the parliamentary system as such, but rather the very discipline to party systems. In multi-party parliamentary systems, for instance, cabinets, which are often coalition cabinets, tend to be much less dominant. So the third feature is this two-party system. The way British politics is dominated by two large parties. We have the Conservative Party and the Labour Party. Small parties, namely the Liberal Party, that occupies the political centre has in few occasions enter in coalition governments. So these parties really penalised by the plurality electrosystem, as we will see later on in the course. Minor parties like the Scottish National Party, the Welsh Nationalists and several Northern Ireland parties never managed to win more than a handful of votes and seats. So the Westminster model favours a form of government against a position based on competence and confrontation. In practice, for instance, one of the main functions of the House of Commons is to discuss and approve proposals that come from the government. Yesterday, it was revealed, Mr Speaker, that the Prime Minister's negotiating strategy is to run down the clock, and that the Attorney General told the Prime Minister his belief that the European Union would drop the backstop was a complete fantasy. Are these reports accurate? Or can the Prime Minister provide the detail of the proposals he's put forward to the EU? Prime Minister, I tell you what I'm negotiating strategy is, and it is to get a deal by the summit on October the 17th, and to take this country out of the EU on October the 30th, he must get Brexit done. And what his surrender bill would do, it would wreck any chance of the talks, and we don't know what his strategy is at all, or are he to take over? He's asking for mobs of momentum activists to paralyze the traffic in the name of his— What are they supposed to chant, Mr Speaker? What is the slogan? What do we want? What do we want? Dither and delay? When do we want it? We don't know! That's his policy. So the fourth feature would be the majoritarian and disproportionate system of elections. Members of the House of Commons are elected in single member districts, according to the priority method, which in the UK is called "Fest Past the Post". The candidate with majority vote, or if there is no majority with the largest minority vote, wins. This electrosystem tends to produce very disproportionate results. Majorities are artificially created by the electrosystem. They are fabricated majorities. The fifth element would be a unitary and centralized government. So the UK is a highly unitary and centralized state. Local governments play important roles in the delivery of public policies, but they are no more than a branch of the central government. And the powers are not constitutionally guaranteed as they are in a federal system. They are also financially dependent on the central government. There are, however, two important exceptions. One is Northern Ireland, and the other one is the devolution process in Scotland and Wales. So let's start with Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland was ruled by its own parliament and cabinet with a high degree of autonomy from 1921, when the Republic of Ireland became independent, until the imposition of direct rule by London in 1972. Northern Ireland's autonomy with the limited, eliminated in 1972, by parliament, by means of a simple, majoritarian decision. This would have never been possible in a federal state. [Music] If we look at Scotland and Wales on the other hand, these two regions that moved towards greater autonomy, what is called the devolution process. In 1997, referendums held in Scotland and Wales approved the creation of autonomous and directly elected assemblies. Devolution, however, is not on hand in hand with decentralization within England, by far the largest and most important of the UK's four nations. [Music] The sixth feature would be the concentration of legislative power in a unique camera of legislative. The majority principle of concentrating power means that the legislative power should be concentrated in a single house or chamber. But there are two chambers in the UK, the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The former is publicly elected and the latter is by-appointment. The House of Lords Act of 1999 reduced the number of hereditary appointments, still 92 of the seats today, are still hereditary peers, elected among themselves. Basically, these are members of the aristocracy. In the House of Lords, there are bishops, there are dukes, and other members are appointed by the monarch. In any case, the relationship between the two houses is very asymmetrical. Almost all legislative power belongs to the House of Commons. The only power that the House of Lords retains, really, is the power to delay the legislation. So, in theory, it's by-camera, but in practice, we're talking about near-unicamerless. Yes, that is correct. Although it is a bit odd that the House of Lords is the only upper house of a by-camera parliament in the world to be larger in terms of the number of members that it's lower house. The last feature would be constitutional flexibility. There is not a single written document that specifies the composition and powers of the democratic institutions and the rights of citizens. These are defined instead in a number of basic laws, like the Magna Carta of the 13th century, the Bill of Rights of 1689 and the Pallimentary Acts of 1911 and 1949. So, what difference does it really make to have a non-written constitution? We will see this in greater detail later in the course, but there are two important implications. One is that it's completely flexible because it can be changed by parliament in the same way as any other law, so with regular majorities instead of super majorities. And two, there is no judicial review. That is, there is no supreme law against which the courts can decide on the constitutionality of regular legislation. This implies that the Parliamentary majority can be said to be the ultimate or sovereign authority. This is in sharp contrast to how the three powers are organized in different political systems. In Spain, for instance, the judiciary is an essential part in the functioning of these state apparatus and judges are increasingly asked to decide over the constitutionality of political decisions. This, we know, we know, well, creates lots of tensions. But in the UK, judges do not really intervene in politics. Although it is true that over the last decades, there has been greater intervention. A very recent case of Supreme Court ruling over politics was set on the 2019 when Boris Johnson's decision to close parliament was declared unlawful. The president of the Supreme Court, Lady Hell, said, "The decision to advise her majesty to provoke parliament was unlawful because it had the effect of frustrating or preventing the ability of parliament to carry out its constitutional functions without reasonable justification." The Court is bound to conclude, therefore, that the decision to advise her majesty to provoke parliament was unlawful because it had the effect of frustrating or preventing the ability of parliament to carry out its constitutional functions without reasonable justification. Parliament has not been provoked. This is the unanimous judgment of all eleven justices. It is for Parliament, and in particular, the Speaker and the Lord Speaker, to decide what to do next. Unless there is some parliamentary rule of which we are unaware, they can take immediate steps to enable each house to meet as soon as possible. It is not clear to us that any step is needed from the Prime Minister, but if it is, the Court is pleased that his council have told the Court that he will take all necessary steps to comply with the terms of any declaration made by this Court. So we have done an overview of the United Kingdom. I am Lorenzo Vidal, and I will continue asking Marga some questions for the next couple of episodes. Hope that you listen in. [Music]