Check out how the election and functioning of the House of Commons, the Lower House of the British Parliament, which will have the 650 representatives elected in the legislative elections of July 4th, will be:
– 650 chairs –
The vote will decide the 650 seats in the House of Commons: 543 elected in England, 57 in Scotland, 32 in Wales and 18 in Northern Ireland.
The Conservatives will field candidates in 635 constituencies, Labour and the Liberal Democrats in 631, the far-right Reform UK party in 630, almost double the number five years ago, and the Greens in 629.
In total, 4,515 candidates will contest the elections, a record.
– Voting method –
Parliamentarians are elected by universal suffrage for a five-year term. In each electoral district, the candidate who receives the most votes is declared the winner.
This voting method favors the majority parties, in this case the Conservatives and the Labour Party.
The prime minister is appointed by the king. He or she may be the leader of the party with the most votes, if it obtains an absolute majority, or of the main party in the coalition formed, if an absolute majority is not achieved.
– Absolute majority –
To obtain an absolute majority, a party must win at least 326 seats, but in reality the number is slightly lower, as at least four deputies (the president of the Chamber, called the ‘spokesperson’, and his deputies) never participate in the votes.
Furthermore, MPs from the republican Sinn Féin party in Northern Ireland, currently the main political force in that region, refuse to sit in Westminster seats because they do not recognise the authority of the British Parliament.
– Operation –
Elected representatives in the House of Commons consider and vote on laws introduced by the government and can also propose their own bills. After ceding some powers to the local parliaments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in the areas of health, transport and housing, only a few of these laws affect the whole of the UK.
Elected deputies also evaluate the government’s work in thematic committees.
At the beginning of the legislature, the members of the Chamber choose a president, the “speaker”, and three vice presidents.
The second most voted party after the party in power, or the party with the most votes that is not part of a coalition, leads the opposition.
This opposition party forms a “shadow cabinet”, a kind of replica of the government, and its leader questions the prime minister in Parliament every week, usually on Wednesdays.
Unlike many parliaments around the world, the House of Commons is not shaped like a semicircle and the opposition sits facing the members of the ruling party.
– Previous elections –
In the 2019 elections, the Conservatives, led by Boris Johnson, won an absolute majority of 365 seats.
On that occasion, Labour won 202 seats and the Scottish National Party (SNP) 48.
The Liberal Democrats won 11 seats, ahead of the Northern Irish Unionist Party (8), its republican opponent Sinn Féin (7) and the Welsh party Plaid Cymru (4).
2024-07-02 00:01:45