Yesterday, the Parliament of the United
Kingdom voted 522 MP’s to 13 to call a general election on 8 June 2017. This
might seem quite strange to us, with a parliament with fixed terms – and in
fact, it is a bit strange for the UK as well – after all, the Fixed-term
Parliaments Act of 2011 had not even survived two successive parliaments.
What makes it even more significant is that
this is the first time a sitting parliament has voted to dissolve parliament
and initiate an election. Before the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, parliaments in
the UK usually dissolved on their own, initially after 7 years, in line with
the Septennial Act of 1715, and from 1911 onwards after 5 years, in line with
the Parliaments Act of 1911.
This self-dissolution, however, rarely happened.
Due to the existence of the UK parliament, we tend to consider the UK a
democracy. However, it is the United KINGDOM of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland, and parliament could always be dissolved by Royal Proclamation of the
Monarch by virtue of his or her Royal Prerogative.
Originally, this meant the King or Queen
decided when parliament would dissolve, but as parliament’s power grew, this
was done less and less on the Monarch’s whim, and increasingly only on advice
of the Prime Minister. As such, by the nineteenth century, the Prime Minister
in essence dissolved parliament and decided when elections would be held – not
an insignificant power for the party in charge, and the reason why parliament
so rarely dissolved on its own.
The Fixed-Term Parliaments Act of 2011
changed that, of course. The Act removed the royal prerogative to dissolve
parliament, and repealed the Septennial Act of 1715 as well as any other
reference to this royal prerogative. It thus vested this duty in parliament
itself, allowing it to dissolve parliament itself either by a two-thirds vote
for an early parliamentary election, or by a motion of no confidence in the
government.
Lest you think that the queen has given up
much, it should be remembered that she still retains quite a large set of
prerogative powers. While she these days only exercises them on advice of her
government, it remains within her power to do so in case of a governmental
crisis. These powers include appointing a Prime Minister of her own choosing –
which she last did in 1963 when she appointed Sir Alec Douglas-Home as Prime
Minister, on the advice of outgoing Harold Macmillan.
She can also dismiss a Prime Minister and
government on her own authority. The last time a monarch did this was in 1834,
by King William IV. She can also refuse royal assent on a parliamentary bill,
though a monarch last did that in 1708, when Queen Anne withheld assent on the
Scottish Militia Bill.
Inter alia, her other powers still include:
to summon and prorogue parliament; to command the Armed Forces; to dismiss and appoint Ministers; to
commission officers in the Armed Forces; to appoint Queen's Counsel; to issue
and withdraw passports; to create corporations via Charter; to declare War and
Peace; to deploy the Armed Forces overseas; to ratify and make treaties; to
grant honours; to grant Prerogative of Mercy; and to appoint Bishops and
Archbishops of the Church of England.
Wait, what? Yes, you read that correctly.
Even though we call Queen Elizabeth II a monarch, the United Kingdom is in fact
a theocracy. In 1534, King Henry VIII broke with the Roman Catholic Church,
seized its assets and declared himself Head of the new Church of England. Even
today, Queen Elizabeth II has as part of her titles ‘Defender of the Faith,’
with the Church of England being a state religion, with its measures approved
by both houses of Parliament. In the UK House of Lords, there are still 26
Bishops of the Chruch, the Lords Spiritual, who retain seats in the upper house
of parliament.
What about parliament then? Well, while the
United Kingdom may be a theocracy, the royal prerogative is these days only
exercised by the Queen on advice of her government. And these powers have been
greatly diminished over the years. After the Glorious Revolution in 1688, Parliament
established itself as the source of legislation. By 1707, the Acts of Union had
established Parliamentary Sovereignty.
Essentially, this devolved into three basic
concepts. One – Parliament can make laws concerning anything. Two – No
Parliament can bind a future parliament. In other words, no previous parliament
can make a law a future one cannot overturn. And three – A valid act of
Parliament cannot be questioned by the court. Parliament is the supreme
lawmaker.
So when we come back to the Fixed-term
Parliaments Act of 2011, we see that it is in fact powerless to bind any
parliament to its provisions. According to parliamentary sovereignty, any
future parliament can vote simply to repeal it. While it has for now survived,
it did not need to for Prime Minister Theresa May to call an election – she
could simply have used her Conservative majority to nullify it. And not even
the Queen with her vast prerogative powers could have stopped it.
In truth, the government of the world’s
fifth-largest economy is a strange affair, a result of its long existence. This
is why we remain curious whenever something strange occurs on that tiny island
off the coast of Europe. That, and the fact that that tiny island nation, with
its odd form of government, once controlled the largest empire known to man,
with a quarter of the earth’s population and land area under its dominion.
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