UNITED KINGDOM OF
GREAT BRITAIN AND
NORTHERN IRELAND
By William G. Andrews, Ph.D.
Revised by Michael Levy, Ph.D.
T he United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland lies in northwestern Europe and consists of
four countries: England, Scotland, Wales, and North-
ern Ireland. England, Scotland, and Wales constitute
Great Britain and have a population of about 58 mil-
lion people, while Northern Ireland, consisting of the
six northeastern counties (commonly referred to as
Ulster) on the neighboring island of Ireland, has a
population of about 1.7 million people.
The System of
Government
The United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy.
Though it consists of four separate countries and
Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland each have their
own legislatures (with varying degrees of devolved
power), the United Kingdom has a unitary form of
government. The British political system dates at least
to William the Conqueror in 1066 and has evolved
since then, with several abrupt constitutional breaks.
The four countries were joined over a period of several
centuries. England, which has traditionally been the
dominant partner in the kingdom and contains about
more than four-fifths of its population, was joined
with Wales legally and administratively in 1536 and
1542. Scotland, which had its own monarch and Par-
liament, agreed to unite with England and abolish its
Parliament in 1707. Northern Ireland joined with the
1409
remainder of the island of Ireland through the Act of
Union in 1800 (which entered into force in 1801). By
the early 20th century, however, nationalists in Ireland
sought independence from the United Kingdom, and in
1921 separate Parliaments for northern and southern
Ireland were established, the southern Irish legislature
evolving into a Parliament for an independent Republic
of Ireland in 1922.
An important constitutional break that has affected
the United Kingdom’s constitutional settlement was the
Glorious Revolution (1688–89), in which King James
II was deposed as king and replaced by William and
Mary. In taking the throne, William and Mary agreed
to a settlement that enhanced the rights of Parliament
and, simultaneously, reduced that of the monarchy.
This settlement, known as the British Bill of Rights, set
the country on an evolutionary path toward democratic
rule. The regime of coordinate executive and legislative
branches that was founded then gradually became a par-
liamentary system by the mid-19th century. By the mid-
20th century further evolution had given the queen’s
first minister such ascendancy over the government
and Parliament that some observers labeled the regime
“prime ministerial” or even “presidential.”
Because of the evolutionary nature of the regime,
it lacks a codified constitution. The closest British
attempt at such a document was the Instrument of
Government of Oliver Cromwell and the Puritan
Commonwealth of the 17th century. Its failure pro-
vided little incentive to try again. Nevertheless, the
British have a clear set of principles to regulate the
1410 World Encyclopedia of Political Systems and Parties
conduct of their politics and government, much of it
in formal legislative and executive acts.
The earliest and best known of these documents
is the Magna Carta of 1215, by which the nobility
limited the king’s authority. Others emerged from the
great constitutional struggles of the 17th century: the
Petition of Right (1628), Habeas Corpus Act (1679),
Bill of Rights (1689), Act of Settlement (1701), Act
of Union with Scotland (1707), and the Place Acts
(1740s). Other constitutional statutes are the 19th-
century reform acts that expanded suffrage. British
constitutional principles underwent much additional
codification in the 20th century through such laws as
the Parliament Acts (1911 and 1949), the Statute of
Westminster (1931), the Ministers of the Crown Act
(1937), the Life Peerages Act (1958), and the Renun-
ciation of Peerages Act (1963).
The British constitution has been framed even
more by convention than by statute. Some of its
most fundamental features have become established
through the elevation of practice into principle. Such
cornerstones of the system as the unitary state, min-
isterial responsibility, Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition,
and the suprapolitical monarchy have all emerged that
way. A constitution of such origin would seem likely to
be highly unstable, as an act of Parliament or executive
action might alter it. Nevertheless, the British political
class has worked with this system for so long that it
rarely makes changes abruptly or without deliberation,
and it seldom disagrees in significant ways on the con-
tent of the constitution.
EXECUTIVE
The executive branch of the system has five main com-
ponents: the monarch, the prime minister, the cabinet,
the government, and the civil service. The reigning
monarch is the head of state, the ceremonial chief
executive. The prime minister is the head of the gov-
ernment, the functional chief executive. The cabinet
is the collective chief executive; the government is the

leadership of the administration; and the civil service is
the administrative staff that implements the decisions
of the cabinet and government.
The British monarchy is among the most venerable
institutions of its type in the world. It has survived
since Roman times, the only interruption in its reign
having been the brief period of the Puritan Common-
wealth (1649–60). The House of Windsor has held the
throne since 1714, but its hereditary connections to
the Crown can be traced through collateral lines much
further back.
The monarchy has a broad range of important
formal powers that it rarely exercises in practice. They
include the power to appoint and remove all civil and
military officers, an absolute veto over all laws, and
authority to make foreign and defense policies and to
implement them through the diplomatic corps and
armed forces. The monarch also has the power to
dissolve Parliament and to call for new elections and
to bestow honors such as peerages and knighthoods.
Through the centuries, however, these formal pow-
ers have been gradually reduced, so that the monarch
generally follows the advice of government ministers,
particularly prime ministers, and acts primarily as a
figurehead, the symbolic embodiment of the state and
nation. The monarch and other leading members of
the royal family represent those elevated abstractions
on all sorts of ceremonial occasions, from launching
ships and dedicating buildings to receiving ambassa-
dors and opening sessions of Parliament. In private,
the monarch acts as a confidential adviser to the prime
minister. The king or queen receives a constant flow
of official dispatches on all important public business
and has “the right to be consulted, the right to encour-
age, the right to warn” (Walter Bagehot 1826–77).
Throughout much of the second half of the 20th
century, the reigning monarchs rarely used their own
discretion in performing public acts. In 1957 Sir
Anthony Eden resigned as prime minister without rec-
ommending a successor, leaving the Conservative Party
with a parliamentary majority but no titular leader.
While either R. A. Butler or Harold Macmillan would
have been accepted by the party, Queen Elizabeth con-
sulted two elder Conservative statesmen and appointed
Macmillan. Had she chosen to consult others who
would have given different advice, she might well have
named Butler. That exception underlines the normally
nonpolitical character of the institution.
In contrast to the monarch, prime ministers are
in the vortex of politics. Although they have been
called “first among equals,” their actual power is
much greater. The prime minister’s power is based on
United Kingdom 1411
the role of chairing the cabinet. He or she controls its
membership and the attendance of nonmembers at
its meetings, schedules its meetings, drafts its agenda,
directs and summarizes its deliberations, draws the
conclusions from them, and supervises the implemen-
tation of its decisions. That power is further enhanced
by the process of democratic election. British national
elections turn largely on the issue of the incumbency
of the prime ministership.
Voters select members of Parliament (MPs) largely
on the basis of their preferences for the prime ministe-
rial candidates of the major parties. Thus, the winner
has a popular mandate that cannot be matched by
other members of the government. However, the prime
minister’s power is restricted by the principle of collec-
tive responsibility. The prime minister’s actions require
the acquiescence of the other members, which is usu-
ally obtained. A revolt by ministers, such as that which
caused the ouster of Margaret Thatcher in 1990, is rare
because the cabinet members know that the voters tend
to impose severe penalties on disunited governments.
On the other hand, disgruntled influential party mem-
bers can inflict heavy political costs on prime ministers
without open rebellion. A prime minister’s awareness
of this vulnerability acts as an important restraint.
Collective responsibility requires that all political
decisions of the government be taken by deliberation
and agreement in the cabinet. All members of the
government must support all cabinet decisions loyally,
regardless of their own opinions or views expressed in
cabinet. Decisions should be reached by consensus.
The principle of collective responsibility stipulates that
cabinet members who oppose government policy and
feel compelled to make that opposition known in pub-
lic must resign from the cabinet.
The principle of collective responsibility has been
attenuated somewhat in recent decades. Some new
practices have reinforced the traditional reality of
prime ministerial preeminence in the meetings. In
some cases, cabinet committees make decisions bind-
ing on the whole cabinet without review by it. In oth-
ers, the prime minister takes important action without
prior reference to the cabinet. In still others—notably
the decision to join the European Economic Com-
munity in the 1970s—the cabinet cannot agree and its
members take opposing positions publicly. The rise of
a cabinet secretariat responsible to the prime minister
and a decline in cabinet secrecy have undermined
the concept of collective responsibility still further,
and in the early 21st century Clare Short, a member
of the cabinet, was openly critical of Prime Minister
Tony Blair’s decision to enter a U.S.-led coalition to
1412 World Encyclopedia of Political Systems and Parties
invade Iraq and topple the Iraqi government of Sad-
dam Hussein, resisting for a time resigning from the
cabinet. After finally deciding to resign her office,
Short remarked in a speech to the House of Commons
that “there is no real collective responsibility because
there is no collective,” suggesting that the prime min-
ister had such a firm hold on policy that other cabinet
members held little sway over government decisions.
Another important concept is individual ministe-
rial responsibility, whereby ministers are accountable
for the department or agency that they head and are
answerable to Parliament.
A typical British cabinet includes some 20 senior
ministers. Its exact size and composition depend on the
circumstances of the moment and the preferences of
the prime minister. The heads of the principal minis-
tries are always members, as is the leader of the House
of Commons. Often, one or two cabinet members will
be ministers without portfolio or ministers on short-
term assignment, such as negotiating entrance to the
European Economic Community.
The cabinet is part of the government, which, in
recent years, has numbered about 100 members. Most
of them belong to the majority party in the House of
Commons, but a few are always drawn from the House
of Lords. Besides the cabinet members, the government
includes non-cabinet ministers, ministers of state
(deputy heads of major ministries), parliamentary sec-
retaries or undersecretaries (administrative assistants
to ministers), and parliamentary private secretaries
(constituency and parliamentary assistants to minis-
ters). Finally, the chief whip and assistant whips of the
majority party (officers responsible for liaison between
the government and Parliament) are de facto members
of the government.
The prime minister is appointed formally by the
monarch. Normally, this is not a discretionary deci-
sion. Usually, the House of Commons has a single-party
majority, and that party has a designated leader. In such
cases, the monarch must appoint that leader. If no party
has a majority or the majority party has no designated
leaders, the monarch may use some small measure
of discretion in selecting a prime minister. Even that
must be done so carefully and be so generally accept-
able that no suspicion of political manipulation by the
monarch arises. The other members of the government
are appointed by the monarch on nomination by the
prime minister. The official opposition forms a shadow
cabinet, with members responsible for questioning
government ministers and acting as party spokesperson
on their policy areas. When the opposition comes to
power, members of the cabinet are often drawn from
the shadow cabinet. The non-cabinet members of the
government are selected by the prime minister taking
into account factional and electoral considerations, the
preferences of the cabinet, personal compatibilities, and
political and personal competence.
LEGISLATURE
The British Parliament is bicameral in form. Its two
chambers are the House of Commons (the lower
house) and the House of Lords (the upper house). It
consists of some 650 members. Like most legislatures,
the House is not an accurate cross section of the Brit-
ish population occupationally. Business management
and teaching are the most common occupations,
comprising about two-fifths of MPs. Law is much less
common than in the United States Congress, account-
ing for one-tenth of MPs. The most common occupa-
tions are teaching for Labour MPs and business for
Conservatives.
Women made great strides in winning election
to the House of Commons in the late 20th century,
particularly in the 1990s. In 1918 there was only one
woman member of the House of Commons. From the
1920s to 1983 women never constituted more than 5
percent of MPs. From 1987 onward, however, women
candidates made significant gains, largely the results
of a systematic Labour Party policy that imposed all-
women shortlists for many constituencies in the 1997
election. In 1992 women held 60 seats (9.2 percent) in
the House of Commons, but in 1997 women won 120
seats (18.2 percent) in the House of Commons (18.2
percent), 101 of which represented the Labour Party.
Women held their gains in 2001, when 118 (17.9
percent) women won seats; 95 of the women were
from the Labour Party. In 2005, 127 female MPs were
elected; 97 of these were from the Labour Party.
The Commons is headed by the speaker, who serves
as its presiding officer. The speaker is a member of the
House of Commons and is elected by the chamber.
However, after his or her election, the speaker (and
three deputies) serves as a nonpolitical and nonparti-
san officer, responsible mainly for ensuring order and
decorum in the proceedings. Speakers may suspend
members found in breach of the rules of the House
of Commons. By tradition, to ensure the nonpoliti-
cal character of the office, the speaker is generally not
opposed for reelection by major party candidates.
Speakers are required to run for reelection in the con-
stituency that they represent, but they generally run
unopposed by the major parties. The speaker of the
House represents the House of Commons in its rela-

tions with the House of Lords and with the monarch.
The speaker also serves as chair of the House of Com-
mons Commission. All speakers but one have been
men. In 1992 Betty Boothroyd was elected as the first
woman speaker in the history of Parliament; she served
until her retirement from the House of Commons in
2000. The chairman of Ways and Means presides over
the House when it meets in committee of the whole.
The chairman is assisted by a deputy chairman and by a
panel of committee chairmen appointed by the speaker
at the beginning of each Parliament. All officers are
expected to conduct the sessions of the House in the
same spirit as the speaker.
Besides presiding over the committee of the whole
on occasion, the members of the panel of chairmen
preside over the standing committees of the House on
assignment by the speaker. The other members of the
standing committees are nominated by a Committee of
Selection chosen by the party whips and controlled by
the government. Usually, seven or eight standing com-
mittees, denominated A, B, C, D, and so on, serve at a
time. Each has 16 to 50 members, composed on a basis
that takes into account the members’ qualifications
and special interests and the partisan composition of
the House. Also, the members include the minister in
charge of the bill to be considered by the committee
and one or more of his junior ministers, plus their
counterparts on the opposition front bench (leaders).
Standing committees are reconstituted and new chairs
appointed each time they receive new bills.
The standing committees are mainly forums for
the various viewpoints and technical advisers to the
government. A committee rarely recommends sub-
stantive changes in bills that are not acceptable to
the government. In a sense, the committee stage is
a dress rehearsal for the more public performance in
plenary session. Another part of the Commons’ com-
mittee system is the select committees. Although they
may be appointed for only one session, they tend to
be renewed and to acquire the character of standing
committees. Select committees deal especially with
oversight of the executive branch. Some are oriented
functionally. Select committees hold hearings and
gather evidence and report their findings to the House
of Commons. The number of select committees varies
but now generally ranges from 25 to 30. They include
committees on public accounts (to audit the expendi-
ture of parliamentary appropriations), deregulation (to
promote and monitor the reduction of governmental
controls), and statutory instruments (to ensure that
executive regulations conform to legislation). Others
“shadow” various ministries, such as Treasury, Home
United Kingdom 1413
Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, Education and Employ-
ment, and Foreign Affairs.
Three select committees have specific geographic
concerns: Scottish, Northern Ireland, and Welsh
Affairs. The whips appoint select committees in pro-
portion to the partisan division of the House. The use
of subcommittees and expert advisers has increased,
as select committees have become more common,
active, and important and have produced an increas-
ing volume of reports. In one survey, 90 percent of the
MPs considered the select committees “very or fairly
successful” in obtaining information from the depart-
ments, but they were not regarded as very helpful in
controlling the government.
The Commons has an officer, the parliamentary
commissioner for administration, to assist it in dealing
with complaints by citizens against the bureaucracy.
The commissioner receives complaints on referral
from MPs, investigates them, and recommends correc-
tive action where appropriate. About 1,000 cases are
handled in a typical year, about one-third of which are
found to have merit. The most important organizations
in the Commons are the political party caucuses, the
main instruments for the organization of the busi-
ness of the House. The government works through
its party caucus to ensure that its agenda receives the
necessary attention. Opposition to and criticism of the
agenda is organized by the other major party’s caucus.
The distribution of floor time, the referral of bills, the
scheduling of parliamentary activities, the designation
of debaters and committee members, and so on, are
arranged by the party whips within the caucuses and
by negotiations between them. The whips use the cau-
cuses to ensure party voting discipline.
Besides the committees and caucuses, the Com-
mons registers groups of MPs that give special atten-
tion to specific topics. They are open to MPs of all
parties. All-Party Groups consist of at least 20 quali-
fying members (10 from the government party and
10 from opposition parties) are divided into country
groups (relating to a specific country or region of the
world) and subject groups (relating to a specific issue).
Members of the House of Lords may also join an All-
Party Group, and though the All-Party Groups are
generally made up of only backbench members of Par-
liament, ministers may also join a group. There are also
Parliamentary Groups, which are made up of members
of Parliament as well as outsiders. These organizations
study and promote but have no direct, official role in
the legislative process.
In a sense, the work of the House in plenary ses-
sion resembles that of its committees, writ large and
1414 World Encyclopedia of Political Systems and Parties
more public. It debates bills and resolutions mainly
to ventilate the leading political issues publicly with
a view to influencing the voters at the next general
election. Only rarely does a Commons debate affect
significantly the content or fate of a bill. Most of the
time, dissenting MPs suppress their personal prefer-
ences and those of their constituencies in the inter-
ests of party unity, and votes are cast along straight
party lines. Though party discipline is the norm,
there have been some exceptions to this rule, such
as the rebellions of Conservative MPs opposed to the
Conservative government’s policies on European inte-
gration in the 1990s and Labour MPs against Tony
Blair’s Iraq policy in the early 21st century. Despite
such exceptions, backbench MPs are, in effect, party
soldiers who must obey orders or face expulsion.
However, they serve as virtually the only reservoir of
political leadership in the country. The Commons is
now considered the sole route to the prime minister-
ship and, with only a few exceptions, the only way to
reach the cabinet.
One small legislative sop left to the backbench-
ers is private members’ time, which is reserved for
consideration of private members’ bills. Such bills
often deal with narrow personal items and mat-
ters of conscience. However, that hardly affects the
government’s dominance. Because time for debating
private members’ bills is quite limited, only a handful
of members are able to put forward a bill each ses-
sion. A ballot is held early in a parliamentary session,
and the first 20 MPs whose names are drawn are
able to introduce a bill. Debate on these bills occurs
on Fridays. Backbench MPs may also introduce bills
on Tuesdays or Wednesdays under the “ten-minute
rule,” which allows a member to give a brief speech.
Though some of these bills become law, many do not.
In fact, the government initiates about 80 percent of
the bills enacted. Also, more than 90 percent of the
government’s bills become law in the same session
compared with about 15 percent of private members’
bills. Even those figures understate the government’s
control. In fact, nothing is passed that the govern-
ment is determined to prevent and nothing fails that
the government insists on passing.
In addition to its legislative work, the House in ple-
nary session holds a question period at the beginning
of each day’s session. For about an hour, ministers
respond to inquiries and follow-up questions posed by
MPs. Half an hour of Wednesday’s session is reserved
for the prime minister. From 100 to 150 questions
are submitted for oral answer each day, and about a
third of them get responses. Also, about 40,000 ques-
tions are submitted for written answers each year. As
with debates, questions that deal with policy matters
are aimed more at public opinion than at substantive
change in policy. During each session there are 20
so-called “Opposition Days,” in which the opposition
parties may choose the issue to be discussed.
The government is subject to the will of the House
of Commons, and the prime minister, cabinet, and
government may be removed from office through a
vote of confidence or motion of censure.
The Commons rarely—only once since 1924—exer-
cises this constitutional prerogative. The exception
was the overthrow of the government of James Cal-
laghan by a margin of one vote on March 28, 1979.
That Labour government had been formed by Harold
Wilson in October 1974 with a majority of three seats
but lost seven seats in by-elections, three by defec-
tions, and one to the speakership. Also, two were
vacant by the end of March 1979. Thus, even that
exception resulted from the erosion of party strength,
not a breakdown of party discipline. It still conformed
to the underlying principle of British government that
MPs are elected to support their party leaders and may
break ranks only on insignificant matters in the most
extreme circumstances.
The Commons sits about 160 days each year. The
legal term of each Parliament is five years. It may be
dissolved early by the monarch on the request of the
prime minister. Usually, the prime minister decides to
dissolve after very limited consultations with the most
senior leaders of the government; it is not usually a
matter for cabinet discussion. Most dissolutions are
called because Parliament is near its end and the prime
minister believes the moment to be electorally propi-
tious for the government party. At other times, Parlia-
ment may be prorogued because it lacks a working
majority. Since 1945 only the 1959 and 1992 Parlia-
ments have run full term. In both cases, the incumbent
government lost the election.
The upper chamber of the British Parliament is
the House of Lords. Traditionally, it included all the
hereditary peers of the realm. In 1958 Life Peerages
were created. These expire with the death of the bearer.
Also, peeresses now sit in the Lords. Hereditary peer-
ages still can be created, but only two have been since
1964, both to elderly men without heirs. Beginning in
the late 1990s the House of Lords underwent major
reforms. Legislation passed in 1999 reduced the num-
ber of hereditary peers from more than 750 to 92.
Over the next several years the government announced
plans to introduce additional reforms. As of 2005 there
were about 700 members of the House of Lords. In

addition, the Lords includes up to 12 Lords of Appeal
(who form the highest appellate court in the realm)
and 26 bishops of the Church of England.
The House of Lords was once the dominant par-
liamentary chamber, but its power declined with the
rise of democracy. The Parliament Acts of 1911 and
1949 left it with only a suspensive veto: it can delay
money bills only 30 days and other bills one year. The
absence of constituency pressures and party discipline
sometimes enables the Lords to play an independent
legislative role, which it has done increasingly in recent
years. For example, since the early 1970s government
bills have been defeated in the House of Lords about
20 to 25 times per year. However, the House of Lords
has long had large disparity in its party composition,
with Conservative members comprising by far the
largest contingent. As a result, Labour governments
have suffered many more defeats than Conservative
governments. For example, though the Conservative
government of Margaret Thatcher was defeated in the
House of Lords only three times in the 1986–87 ses-
sion, a Labour government in 1975–76 was defeated
on 126 votes, and Tony Blair’s Labour government was
defeated 39 times in 1997–98.
The organization of the House of Lords is much
less formal than that of the Commons. Its main offi-
cers are the lord chancellor, a member of the cabinet,
as its speaker, and a lord chairman of the commit-
tees; other government supporters serve as leader and
deputy leader of the House. The committee system is
much less elaborate than in the Commons. Only one
standing committee reviews government bills, and
occasional sessional and select committees report on
special matters.
JUDICIARY
The British courts are nonpolitical institutions with no
authority to review acts of Parliament or the executive
for constitutionality. The head of the system in Eng-
land and Wales is the lord chancellor, a member of the
government and speaker of the House of Lords, who
exercises the judicial functions of that office without
political considerations. All judicial appointments are
made for life by the monarch on recommendation of
the lord chancellor and the government. Scotland’s
judicial system varies considerably from the English
but is equally nonpolitical. The Law Lords in the House
of Lords are the highest court of appeals in the United
Kingdom, though there have been proposals to create
a Supreme Court. More recent constitutional statutes
United Kingdom 1415
have included the 1998 acts devolving limited home
rule on Scotland and Wales.
REGIONAL AND LOCAL
GOVERNMENT
Although power is largely centralized at the national
levels, regional assemblies exist for Scotland, Wales,
and Northern Ireland, all of which were created in the
late 1990s. Northern Ireland had an assembly from the
1920s until 1972, when Home Rule was suspended.
Following the signing of the Good Friday Agreement
in 1998 and its ratification by voters in both Northern
Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, a new Northern
Ireland Assembly was established. The government of
Northern Ireland is discussed in a separate chapter.
In September 1997 referendums were held in
both Scotland and Wales on government proposals
to establish legislative bodies with varying powers.
In Scotland the referendum passed overwhelmingly,
with 74 percent of voters approving the creation of a
Parliament and 64 percent supporting a proposal that
gave the new Parliament tax-varying powers. The 129-
member Scottish Parliament is responsible for policy
areas previously administered by the Scottish Office
of the British government, including health, educa-
tion, housing, local government, law enforcement,
economic development, transportation, agriculture,
the environment, and the arts. In these policy areas,
the Scottish Parliament may alter or overturn decisions
taken by Parliament at Westminster. The Scottish Par-
liament also has the power to vary the United Kingdom
tax rate within Scotland by a maximum of 3 percent.
It can raise or lower the United Kingdom income tax
by 3 percent. It does not have jurisdiction over foreign
policy, defense, social security, or macroeconomic and
fiscal policy. Governmental functions are performed by
the Scottish Executive, a team of ministers headed by
a first minister chosen by the Parliament. Its members
serve fixed four-year terms.
The 60-member National Assembly for Wales
has more limited authority than the Scottish Parlia-
ment. The assembly deals with the matters previ-
ously administered by the Welsh Office as well as the
responsibilities of some 80 governmental committees
in Wales. However, unlike the Scottish Parliament, it
lacks the authority to enact or amend most laws. The
government is led by the Welsh Assembly Government,
headed by a first minister.
The present system of local government for Eng-
land and Wales went into effect in 1986, though there
was a substantial reorganization in the 1990s.
1416 World Encyclopedia of Political Systems and Parties
Local government is funded largely through prop-
erty taxes and grants from the central government.
Many parts of England have a two-tier structure of local
government that includes county and district councils,
though in some areas there is a single governmental
unit, known as a local authority. In 1986 the power
of the Greater London Authority was abolished by the
government of the United Kingdom. In 2000, however,
Greater London, which is led by a directly elected mayor,
regained some of its powers. Greater London has 32
boroughs, as well as the Corporation of the City of
London (the historical and financial core of the city).
Each borough has a local council. Within England
there are six metropolitan counties (Greater Man-
chester, Merseyside, Tyne and Wear, West Midlands,
South Yorkshire, and West Yorkshire). Within these six
metropolitan counties are 36 district councils, whose
authority includes local services such as fire protec-
tion and civil defense. England also contains numerous
nonmetropolitan counties, which have responsibility for
services such as education, transport, and planning. The
nonmetropolitan counties are further subdivided into
several districts that are responsible for more local con-
cerns. There are also nearly 10,000 parish governments,
which provide some local services.
Wales has 22 unitary authorities that have respon-
sibility for areas such as housing, education, libraries,
fire and police services, and social services. The unitary
authorities are broken into communities, many of
which have local councils.
Scotland is divided into 32 council areas, each of
which is led by a local council. The local governments
provide an extensive array of services that include edu-
cation, transport, social services, housing, and police
and fire services. Scotland also contains some 1,200
community councils, which have no legal authority
but are consulted on local issues.
At all levels, local government units are directed by
councils that are elected every four years. The regional
and local units are, within their spheres, relatively
independent. Government at the lower level is not
supervised by that at the next-higher level.
The Electoral System
British popular elections choose members of the House
of Commons, the European Parliament, and local
councils. Also, Scottish, Northern Irish, and Welsh
voters elect the members of their legislative institu-
tions. Westminster MPs are elected by simple plurality
from single-member districts. By-elections fill interim
vacancies using the same system. The Scottish Parlia-
ment has 73 members elected from single-member
districts and 56 by proportional representation from
party lists in the eight Scottish European Parliament
districts. Forty members of the Welsh Assembly are
elected from single-member constituencies. The other
20 are elected by proportional representation from
party lists. The members of the European Parliament
are elected by proportional representation from multi-
member districts.
Legislation enacted in the 1940s requires that
Commons constituency boundaries be reviewed and
readjusted for population changes on a periodic basis
based on recommendation by a nonpolitical council.
There are separate boundary commissions for England,
Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Redistribu-
tions attempt to equalize the constituencies within
each country, but disparities remain that are larger
than those allowed in the United States. In 2001, for
example, the smallest constituency was the Western
Isles, located in Scotland, which had only about 22,000
electors, while the largest was the Isle of Wight, in
England, which had more than 100,000. Part of the
discrepancy has been based on legislation requiring a
minimum of 71 seats for Scotland, a rule abandoned
following the creation of the Scottish Parliament. Wales
also has traditionally been overrepresented in the Par-
liament at Westminster. The largest discrepancies are
between the countries, with Scotland and Wales each
average about 55,000 electors, while Northern Ireland
constituencies average about 67,000 voters, an English
constituencies about 70,000.
Suffrage extends to all British subjects who are at
least 18 years of age, with certain minor exceptions.
Peers and peeresses, convicted felons, and the insane
are not eligible to vote. Voter registration is usually
through postcard forms sent out by the government.
The register is open at certain specified times and qual-
ified voters who have been omitted may enroll. Nev-
ertheless, an estimated 5 to 10 percent of the eligible
voters do not register. Turnout of registered voters since
World War II has averaged about 75 percent but has
fallen in recent decades. Polling day is always a Thurs-
day. Official paper ballots are provided under rigorous
controls at the polling stations. On each ballot are
printed the name, address, and party affiliation of each
qualified candidate for the seat from that district.
In addition to local, national, and European
elections, the United Kingdom—particularly London,
Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland—have held ref-
erendums. On June 5, 1975, the British public voted
to join the European Community (now the European
 United Kingdom 1417

Union). In 1979 voters in Scotland and Wales were
given the opportunity to endorse the creation of
regional assemblies. Though a majority of voters in
Scotland favored such a proposal (a majority opposed
it in Wales), the legislation that called the referendum
required that the proposal gain the support of at least
40 percent of registered voters, a condition that was
not met. In 1997 voters in both countries voted in
favor of proposals that yielded limited autonomy to
each country (greater in Scotland than in Wales). In
1998 voters in London endorsed a plan to reestablish
a Greater London Authority with a directly elected
mayor, and that year voters in Northern Ireland sup-
ported a proposal that reestablished a Northern Ire-
land Assembly. Though use of referenda are rare in
the United Kingdom, they have increased in recent
decades, and on major constitutional issues involved
regarding Britain’s relationship with the European
Union (such as the European constitution or joining
the euro, the European Union’s single currency), lead-
ers of the major parties have endorsed their use.
The Party System
ORIGINS OF THE PARTIES
Britain has had basically a two-party system since the
Whigs and Tories (Royalists) emerged in the late 17th
century. They were replaced by the Liberals and Con-
servatives after the Reform Act of 1832, and Labour
supplanted the Liberals in the late 1920s. However, the
Liberals survived as a minor party and since 1970 have
been joined in the House of Commons by several other
minor parties. In several elections—1910, 1923, 1974,
and 1992—the major parties were so evenly matched
that minor parties held the balance of power at some
point during the Parliament.

GENERAL ELECTIONS RESULTS (1959–2005)

Cons. Labour Lib/Dem Others

Year Total Vote
% Seats % Seats % Seats % Seats

1959 49.4 365 43.8 258 5.9 6 0.9 1 35,397,080

1964 43.4 304 44.1 317 11.2 9 1.3 0 35,892,572

1966 41.9 253 47.9 363 8.5 12 1.7 2 35,964,684

1970 46.4 330 42.9 287 7.5 6 3.2 7 28,344,807

1974 38.2 297 37.2 301 19.3 14 5.3 23 31,340,162

1974 35.9 277 39.3 319 18.3 13 6.6 26 29,189,104

1979 43.9 339 36.9 268 13.8 11 5.5 17 31,222,279

1983 42.4 397 27.6 209 25.4a 23a 4.6 21 30,670,905

1987 42.3 376 30.8 229 22.6a 22a 4.3 23 32,536,137

1992 41.9 336 34.4 271 17.8 20 5.8 24 33,612,693

1997 31.4 165 41.9 419 17.2 46 4.5 19 31,613,191

2001 31.7 166 40.7 412 18.3 52 5.5 27 26,367,383

2005 32.3 197 35.2 356 22.0 62 10.5 31 26,981,410

aAlliance
1418 World Encyclopedia of Political Systems and Parties
Britain has a two-party system in the sense that
the two major parties have won about 95 percent of
the seats in general elections since World War II. How-
ever, that figure has declined to less than 90 percent in
recent elections. The system is also bipartite in that the
two major parties are substantially equal in strength
and frequently alternate in power. From 1945 until
1979 they occupied office almost identical lengths of
time. However, the Conservatives formed the govern-
ments continuously from 1979 to 1997.
THE PARTIES IN LAW
British law is virtually silent on political parties. No
laws deal exclusively with political parties as organiza-
tions, and general legislation on associations makes
no explicit distinctions with respect to them. Laws
on charitable societies expressly exclude organizations
that are primarily political. Election laws deal almost
entirely with candidates, rather than parties; party
affiliations could not even be mentioned on the ballots
until 1969.
The governmental subsidies for the opposition
are paid to the parliamentary groups, rather than
the parties themselves. In practice, those funds are
used mainly to support extraparliamentary activities.
Beyond these references, parties as such are generally
untouched by British law.
PARTY ORGANIZATION
The main British parties have dues-paying member-
ships and elaborate organizational structures that gen-
erally provide for a considerable degree of intraparty
democracy and local influence on party policy. How-
ever, few citizens (about 2 percent) are members of a
political party, and even fewer are activists.
The basic working organizations of the parties are
the constituency associations based on the parliamen-
tary districts. They nominate and run the candidates
for Parliament, though often with input from the
national party. The candidates need not be residents of
their constituencies, and the national party makes sure
its major figures are nominated in “safe” districts, a
practice that seldom causes friction with the constitu-
ency associations.
CAMPAIGNING
Parliamentary election campaigning in Great Britain
falls into two clear-cut phases and is conducted mainly
at two levels. The precampaign begins when a general
impression forms that an election is likely within a few
months. The official campaign begins when Parliament
is dissolved and continues through the 17 working
days until election eve. The precampaign phase may
last two years or more; also, it may be very short or, in
the case of a “snap” election, nonexistent. Campaigns
are conducted mainly at the national and constituency
level, though regional party offices perform certain
coordinating functions.
The local constituency associations nominate the
party candidates, usually from lists of acceptable
applicants provided by the national party headquar-
ters, which also reviews and approves the constitu-
ency nominees. For the 1997 election the Labour
Party required many local associations to nominate
only women on their short lists, with the result that
a record number of women were elected. A candidate
may also appear on the general election ballot if he or
she is nominated by two voters in the constituency and
submits paperwork that is signed by eight additional
voters. All candidates must pay a £500 deposit, which
is refunded if the candidate receives at least 5 percent
of the total votes cast. The national organizations
prepare campaign broadcasts; publish party election
manifestos; arrange national tours for party leaders to
appear at rallies, press conferences, and other public
occasions; prepare posters, stickers, and other cam-
paign material that is not specifically local in content;
and continuously review campaign strategy and tactics
and coordinate changes with the local organizations.
Finally, the national organization places advertise-
ments, especially in newspapers; these advertisements
do not endorse any specific candidate and thus are not
chargeable against candidate expenditure.
The constituency organization handles local cam-
paigning, which includes the candidate’s tours of the
district with speeches, question periods in local meet-
ing halls, and handshaking in public places. Local party
workers canvass door-to-door, distributing national
party materials as well as brochures on local issues and
the candidate’s election speeches.
The principal means by which the state regulates
those activities are financial. A legal limit—varying
somewhat by constituency—is placed on the amount of
money that can be spent on behalf of each parliamen-
tary candidate. A candidate may spend a maximum of
£5,483 plus an additional amount per constituency,
depending on whether it is for a county or borough
constituency. Thus, on average a candidate may spend
about £9,000. For by-elections, however, a higher
limit of £100,000 is imposed. Candidates may also
send an election leaflet to all voters in a constituency
with having to pay postal charges. Legislation enacted

in 2000 attempted to place some controls on party
finances. Parties could accept donations greater than
£200 only from individuals registered to vote in the
United Kingdom or from European Union–incorpo-
rated companies that do business in the country, as
well as trade unions. All large donations (defined as
greater than £5,000) must be disclosed. The legislation
also set spending limits, allowing each party to spend
no more than £30,000 for each constituency in which
it competes. In practice, campaign costs are several
times as great as those specified by law. Precampaign
expenses vary greatly by election, tending to be quite
substantial if an election comes later than anticipated.
On the other hand, “snap” elections involve virtually
no precampaign expenses. Firm estimates are not avail-
able, but precampaigns probably cost the constituency
organizations as much, on the average, as the official
campaigns, amounting to more than £75 million gen-
erally. In addition, an indeterminate amount is spent
by nonparty groups and individuals apart from direct
support of individual candidates.
Party funds for campaigning come from three main
sources: membership dues, donations, and candidates’
payments of personal expenses. The parties vary greatly
in their reliance on the different categories.
INDEPENDENT VOTERS
About two-thirds of the constituencies are generally
considered “safe,” that is, virtually certain to give a
majority to the same party in every election (except in
landslide elections). About 10 percent of the electorate
seem to switch parties from election to election. Many
independents become candidates but almost never win
unless they are longtime MPs who have been dropped
by their parties and run as independents in the con-
stituencies they have represented.
Major Political Parties
CONSERVATIVE AND UNIONIST
PARTY
HISTORY
After the Reform Act of 1832, Sir Robert Peel began
to form the Conservative Party from the old Tory
Party that had emerged in the late 17th century as
the political ally of the king. In 1834 Peel established
local “registration societies” that evolved gradually into
constituency Conservative Associations. In 1867 about
50 of those organizations formed the National Union
United Kingdom 1419
of Conservative and Constitutional Associations and
called for annual conferences. Three years later, Ben-
jamin Disraeli created the Conservative central office.
In 1912 a faction of the Liberal Party opposed to
Irish Home Rule allied itself to the Conservatives and
“Unionist” replaced “Constitutional” in the name. In
1948–49, the party underwent sweeping reorganiza-
tion. It controlled the government during most of the
period between the end of World War I and the end
of World War II. Since then it has alternated in office
with Labour. The party’s most important leaders in the
twentieth century were Stanley Baldwin (1923–37),
Winston Churchill (1940–55), Harold Macmillan
(1957–63), Edward Heath (1965–75), and Margaret
Thatcher (1975–90).
ORGANIZATION
The Conservatives traditionally had the best party
organization in Britain, although their electoral rout
in 1997 hurt them badly in terms of structure. Their
organization at that time included constituency com-
mittees in all districts in Great Britain. Nearly half
had full-time paid agents (about 300 in 1992), three
times as many as Labour and 10 times as many as the
Liberal Democrats. The constituency committees are
joined together in the National Union of Conservative
and Unionist Associations. The Union holds an annual
conference that is, in theory, the sovereign decision-
making organ of the party. Historically, the Conserva-
tives have kept most factional and personal rivalries
behind the scenes and tend to accept the decisions of
the official leadership with little open questioning. As
a result, the conferences have generally resembled pep
rallies more than deliberative assemblies, though that
superficial harmony was shattered in the late 20th
century by public squabbling over Britain’s place in
Europe.
The Conservatives maintain a central office and a
network of regional offices in England and Wales. The
Scottish Conservatives have a separate central office.
The Northern Irish Official Ulster Unionists are an
independent party closely allied to the Conservatives.
Though that arrangement broke down in the 1992
elections under the strain of the sectarian conflict in
Ulster and nine Conservative candidates opposed UUP
nominees, no serious Conservative candidates ran in
Ulster in 1997, 2001, or 2005.
At the European Union level, the party is a member
of the European People’s Party, a conservative pan-
European political party.
Power is highly concentrated in the national party.
The leader appoints the chairman and other officials of
1420 World Encyclopedia of Political Systems and Parties
the central office, controls indirectly the executive organs
of the National Union, and selects the members of the
party’s shadow cabinet. Until 1963 leaders of the Con-
servative Party were said to “emerge” through informal
processes. That year, Lord Home was picked through an
elaborate series of “soundings” of the party elite.
From 1965 to 1998 the party leader was selected
by Conservative members of the House of Commons.
A candidate would win on the first ballot only with
an absolute majority of the votes and 15 percent more
than the runner-up. Failing that, a second ballot would
be held four days later that would require an absolute
majority. If a third ballot was required, only the three
top candidates from the second round could run and
a preferential voting system ensured that a winner
would emerge. The winner of that balloting was then
confirmed in office by a meeting of Conservative
members of the House of Commons and House of
Lords, prospective parliamentary candidates, and the
members of the executive committee of the National
Union. Following the 1997 election the party’s new
leader, the 36-year-old William Hague, attempted to
modernize the party and enhance the party’s appeal
to the electorate. Under the rules adopted in 1998,
nominees emerge and are voted on by Conservative
MPs. Successive rounds are held, with the candidate
with the lowest total being eliminated until two candi-
dates remain. The winner is then chosen by Conserva-
tive Party members. The rules were first used in 2001
following Hague’s resignation after the 2001 general
election. Conservative MPs may call for a new leader-
ship election if 15 percent of them sign a vote of no
confidence letter against the sitting leader. If the leader
then fails to win a majority of the MPs’ votes, a new
leadership election is triggered in which the current
leader is unable to stand for reelection.
POLICY
Current Conservative policies follow the general line of
reducing the involvement of government in the affairs
of individuals. The party advocates curbs on labor
union power and the welfare state, lower taxes, strong
measures against crime, decentralization of education,
tight limits on immigration, deregulation, and priva-
tization of the economy. It wants to maintain British
rule in Northern Ireland and a strong military force.
Internationally, it remains firmly committed to NATO
but is badly divided on European integration.
MEMBERSHIP AND CONSTITUENCY
The Conservative Party has the largest dues-paying
membership in Britain. The party acquired its mass-
membership character in the years after its 1945 defeat
and at one time had a membership list of 2.5 million,
the largest of any democratic party in the world. As
a result of internal conflict and other factors, Con-
servative membership rolls declined dramatically in
the 1990s. Whereas the party claimed some 750,000
members in the early 1990s, by the early 21st century
its membership had declined to less than 350,000. In
comparison to the other political parties, the Conser-
vative Party membership is disproportionately older.
The party draws its support disproportionately
from people of professional and business backgrounds.
The party is weakest among trade union members.
Other important differences that set off the Con-
servative voter are housing tenure, religious leanings,
age, and geography. Conservative candidates draw best
among those who own their own homes but do poorly
among public-housing tenants. Religiously, the party
is strongest among members of the Church of England
and the Church of Scotland, whereas it draws fewer
voters among Roman Catholics. The older the voter,
the more likely that person is to vote Conservative.
About one-fourth of voters under age 35 have voted
Conservative in recent election, while two-fifths of
those 55 or older have done so. Geographically, Con-
servative strength is concentrated very much in south-
ern England and the Midlands. In that most populous
region of the United Kingdom, with about one-half
of the seats in Parliament, the Conservatives usually
outdraw their rivals by wide margins. In every other
region, they almost always trail Labour. Traditionally,
the Conservatives have been stronger among women
than men, but such a gender gap has disappeared.
Interest-group support for the Conservatives comes
mainly from the business and agricultural communi-
ties. The party is associated closely with a number of
business and farm organizations such as British United
Industrialists, the Economic League, Confederation of
British Industry, Aims (a confederation of business
groups opposed to nationalized industry), and the
National Farmers Union. In addition, many corpora-
tions, smaller groups, and political action organiza-
tions are allied with it.
FINANCING
Traditionally, the Conservative Party has been very
secretive about its finances. With the reforms of 2000,
however, the sources of most of its funds are now
public. About 90 percent of its income is derived from
donations, mainly from business corporations and the
remainder from affiliation fees paid by the constitu-
ency associations. Those associations raise and spend

an average of about $20,000 each in nonelection years,
most of which goes for their agent’s salary. One-third
to one-half of that comes from members’ dues, which
are set by each association, and the rest is donations,
again mainly from businesses. A small amount is
earned from gambling games and bazaars. When in
opposition, the parliamentary delegation receives a
government subsidy of about $500,000 per year.
PROSPECTS
After the Conservatives won their unprecedented
fourth straight general election in 1992, they promptly
went into a tailspin. They split badly—especially over
further European integration—with one former Con-
servative prime minister (Thatcher) attacking the gov-
ernment for recklessness and another (Heath) berating
it for timidity. A series of sex and corruption scandals
buffeted the party further. Public opinion surveys gave
its prime minister the lowest popularity ratings in
history and recorded more sustained dissatisfaction
with governmental performance that ever before. That
sentiment cost the Tories a humiliating defeat in the
1997 elections. Despite the modernization efforts by
William Hague, the party failed to recover in 2001,
suffering a second landslide defeat.
Yet the party has weathered similar situations in
the past and emerged triumphant. The party continued
to suffer discord under Hague’s successor, Iain Duncan
Smith, but it began to coalesce following the election
of Michael Howard as leader in 2003. The party also
benefited from public dissatisfaction with the Labour
Party’s failure to deliver on many domestic priorities
and for Tony Blair’s decision to back the U.S.-led war
effort against Iraq in 2003. In 2004 it finished first in
the elections to the European Parliament and in local
elections, boosting its prospects for capturing control
of the central government. And in new Parliament
elections in 2005, the party still finished well behind
Labour but gained 33 seats over its 2001 performance.
After the election Howard resigned as party leader and
was replaced by David Cameron.
LABOUR PARTY
HISTORY
The British Labour Party was formed in 1906, suc-
ceeding the Labour Representation Committee that
had been founded in 1900 by trade unions, the Inde-
pendent Labour Party, the Fabian Society, and other
socialist societies. Two Labour MPs were elected in
1900 and 30 in 1906. By 1922 Labour was the second-
largest party. In 1924 and 1929–31, minority Labour
United Kingdom 1421
governments held office with the support, but not
the participation, of the Liberal Party. Since World
War II, Labour governments have held office in 1945–
51, 1964–70, 1974–79, and 1997–present. Following
Ramsey MacDonald, who led the party twice (1911–24
and 1922–31), the principal Labour leaders were Clem-
ent Attlee (1935–55), Hugh Gaitskell (1955–63), and
Harold Wilson (1963–76). The party had traditionally
been committed to social democracy and had been
pragmatic and moderate in its policies, but in 1980
the party’s left wing won control and elected Michael
Foot as leader. Foot led the party to a disastrous defeat
in 1983, when it barely finished ahead of an alliance
between the Liberal Party and the newly formed Social
Democratic Party. After the election, the party elected
Neil Kinnock as leader, and it began to purge itself of
more radical policies and elements within the party.
Though Kinnock was successful at modernizing the
party, he failed to win power for the Labour Party in
either 1987 or 1992. Kinnock’s successor, John Smith,
enjoyed national popularity but died suddenly in May
1994 and was replaced by Tony Blair. Blair carried out
a drastic reorientation of the party. He reduced trade
union influence, expunged Socialism from the party
statutes and manifesto, committed it firmly to free-
market economics, gave it a fresh, modern, managerial
face, and more than doubled its membership. In 1997
Blair led the party to its greatest electoral triumph,
when it won 419 seats, and in 2001 the Labour Party
won the largest-ever second-term majority in British
history. In 2005 the party faltered somewhat but still
won 356 out of 646 seats in the House of Commons.
Blair retained the prime ministership.
ORGANIZATION
The Labour Party’s structure is unusually complex. It
includes two types of membership: individual and col-
lective. Most collective members are trade unions, but
a few are cooperative or socialist societies. Members
of young socialist groups and women’s societies are
affiliated individually. Collective members may join at
the local, constituency, regional, or national levels. For
instance, local trade unions may affiliate with local
Labour branches while the national federations, of
which they are part, join the national party.
The structure rises from local branches through
constituency associations to several regional councils
and the national party. The main elements in the
national party are the annual conference, national
executive committee (NEC), national policy forum
(NPF), head office, and the parliamentary Labour
Party (PLP). When in opposition, the PLP elects an
1422 World Encyclopedia of Political Systems and Parties
executive committee whose members are assigned by
the leader to represent the party in various policy areas,
becoming its shadow cabinet.
The annual conference, the highest policy-making
body in the party, is composed of delegates from the
constituency associations, the cooperative and socialist
societies, and the national trade unions. The confer-
ence votes of the organizations are weighted to reflect
the number of their members for whom they have paid
dues or affiliation fees. The labor unions, which at one
time held 90 percent of the votes cast, now cast 50 per-
cent of the votes, and a few of the largest unions have
generally dominated the conferences. However, under
1997 reforms a “rolling policy program” prepared
by a 175-member national policy forum (NPF) and
approved by the NEC is the basis of conference policy
deliberations. Motions from other party organizations
are not in order on matters covered by the NPF.
The NPF consists of about 180 members, two-fifths
of whom must be women. Members of the NPF include
several members of the government or shadow cabinet,
Labour members of Parliament and the European Par-
liament, as well as representatives from the National
Executive Committee, constituency Labour parties,
Scottish and Welsh Labour parties, trade unions,
affiliated socialist societies, the Co-operative Party, the
Black Socialist Society, and local Labour councillors. A
joint policy committee, chaired by the party leader and
composed of equal numbers of members of the govern-
ment or shadow cabinet and nongovernment members
of the NEC, is “the steering group” for the NPF. A joint
campaigns and elections committee, similarly com-
posed, manages election campaigns.
Candidates for party leader must have the support
of 12.5 percent of the MPs (or 20 percent for those
challenging an incumbent). Delegates to the annual
conferences (or if a vacancy occurs between them, a
special conference) report the votes of the members
of their organizations through an electoral college that
gives one-third of the votes each to the trade unions,
the Labour members of the British and European Par-
liaments, and the constituency associations. Balloting
continues until a candidate wins an absolute majority.
A similar, separate election is held for deputy leader.
The national executive committee, which manages
the party between conferences, is elected at the con-
ference. Its composition reflects the party’s federated
character, with its members drawn from all the key
groups within the party. The leader, deputy leader, trea-
surer, European Parliament group leader, and leader
of young Labour serve ex officio. The NEC appoints
and supervises the general secretary, who manages the
day-to-day affairs of the party and oversees the head-
quarters staff. All members of the NEC also serve on
the NPF.
Labour has a long history of factionalism, partly
a result of the federated structure of the party. The
officially recognized components tend to foster diver-
gent viewpoints within the party. The main dividing
line has lain between the leftist ideological socialists
and the moderate pragmatic social democrats. The
Trotskyite militant tendency was banned in 1985 as
a party-within-the-party, and most of its leaders and
members expelled.
POLICY
For most of the period since World War II, the Labour
Party has pursued moderate reformist policies. From
1945 to 1951 it nationalized key industries and
expanded the social welfare system. It implemented a
more limited additional nationalization program from
1964 to 1970. During the earlier period it joined the
NATO alliance and began to dismantle the British
colonial empire. More equivocally, it favored European
integration and reform of the House of Lords (though
its manifesto of 1983 called for withdrawal from the
European Community and abolition of the House of
Lords). It promoted public housing, unemployment
relief, social welfare programs, reflationary economic
policies, protection for immigrants and other minori-
ties, the interests of organized labor, and equality of
educational opportunity.
Under Blair, the party abandoned its commitment
to nationalize or renationalize substantial parts of the
economy and advocates a dynamic free-market econ-
omy cushioned by government regulation of key indus-
tries and a modest social welfare system that retains
the National Health Service intact. After returning to
office in 1997, it undertook to strengthen educational
and training programs and to make important consti-
tutional reforms: a broadened bill of rights, a reformed
upper chamber, a Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parlia-
ment, and a Freedom of Information Act. Finally, its
policies no longer reflect unwavering support for the
trade union movement.
MEMBERSHIP AND CONSTITUENCY
The Labour Party claims about 4 million members.
However, nearly 95 percent of them are indirectly affil-
iated through their trade unions and cooperative and
Socialist societies. About 250,000 belong directly, less
than half that of its peak membership in the 1950s.
Membership gradually declined in the second half of
the 20th century until the mid-1990s, when it grew to

about 350,000 members. Party membership has subse-
quently declined since.
In member and supporter demographics, the
Labour Party is a close mirror image of the Conserva-
tives. Its strength lies disproportionately in the lower
economic categories, among minority ethnic and racial
groups, among public-housing dwellers, and in the
younger age groups. The party is weak in most rural
areas and strong in major cities and where Roman
Catholics are concentrated. Geographically, the party
is strongest in northern England, Yorkshire, the North
West, inner London, Scotland, and Wales. Its weak-
est area is England south of the Midlands. The main
interest group supporting the party is the trade unions,
though reforms aimed at reducing trade union power
has somewhat altered this relationship. Another major
interest group associated closely with Labour is the
nationalized sector of the economy.
FINANCING
The annual dues for individual membership in the
Labour Party are about £225. About one-fourth of
that is kept by the constituency parties, amounting to
10–15 percent of their income. Most of the rest of their
income comes from direct appeals to their members
and entrance fees to social events. Much of the con-
stituency campaign money is contributed by local trade
union branches. The national party receives the other
three-fourths of the dues; about half the Labour Party’s
income is derived from trade unions.
PROSPECTS
Labour has enjoyed great success under the moderate,
modernizing, dynamic leadership of Tony Blair. He
managed to rid the party of its outdated ideological
baggage and to reduce trade union influence that had
formerly alienated large segments of the population.
The party’s landslide victories in 1997 and 2001 repre-
sented a dramatic turnaround for a party that had lost
a record four successive elections between 1979 and
1992 and was out of power for 18 years, longer than
any major party since the rise of the modern political
parties in Great Britain. Moreover, it had suffered from
chronic instability of leadership. From 1975 to 1995
Labour had six leaders to only two for the Conserva-
tives. Yet the party was able to dissipate the “looney
left” image that had plagued it in the early 1980s. The
1997 election indicated that the party had overcome the
fears of many centrist Britons that they could not be
trusted to manage the national economy. Meanwhile,
the internal discord among the Conservatives, particu-
larly over Europe, helped Labour to displace them in
United Kingdom 1423
the minds of many voters as the “natural” party of gov-
ernment leadership. Nevertheless, Blair’s image began
to suffer, particularly in 2003–04 over whether the
country should go to war in Iraq. Many Labour mem-
bers, as well as the bulk of the country, opposed the
war effort. In addition, the party was split over whether
to join the euro, the European Union’s single currency,
an issue that divided the public strongly. These issues
negatively affected its performance in the 2005 elec-
tions, as the party saw its total seats drop from 412 to
354. Nonetheless, it still retained a clear majority, and
Blair remained prime minister.
LIBERAL DEMOCRATS
HISTORY
The Liberal Party formed in 1859 as successor to the
Whigs and dominated British politics for much of the
next 60 years. However, internecine squabbles, espe-
cially over the Irish question, weakened the party and
caused it to lose its place in Britain’s two-party system
to Labour in the 1920s. After 1945 it survived as a
minor party, with its share of the vote ranging between
2.5. and 19.3 percent and its parliamentary delega-
tion between 6 and 20. In 1981 four top Labour Party
leaders and several thousand supporters, disaffected
because of their organization’s leftward slide, quit and
formed the Social Democratic Party. The Liberals and
Social Democrats joined in a formal alliance for the
1983 and 1987 elections and won 25.4 percent and
22.6 percent of the vote, nearly outpolling Labour in
1983. In 1988 they merged.
In 1992 the new party won 17.8 percent and 20
seats. In 1997 it slipped to 17.2 percent but, due to
the peculiarities of the British electoral system, won
46 seats, the largest number of any minor party since
before World War II. In 2001 it raised its vote share
slightly and its seats in the House of Commons to 52,
and in 2005 it saw another increase in vote share and
seats, up to 62 seats. Neither the Liberal Democrats nor
their predecessor parties have held government office
since the National Coalition of World War II, but the
Liberals supported the minority Labour government
in 1977–78. They tend to fare better in local elections
and in elections that use proportional representation
(e.g., elections to the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh
Assembly, and the European Parliament).
ORGANIZATION
The Liberal Democrat Party is a complex and loosely
joined federation. It maintains separate English, Scot-
tish, and Welsh parties. The federal party coordi-
1424 World Encyclopedia of Political Systems and Parties
nates activities among the state parties and prepares
U.K.-wide policy and national parliamentary election
campaigns and fund-raising. The semiannual federal
conference is composed of representatives of every
local party or combination of local parties that has at
least 30 members. It is the sovereign decision-making
body of the federal party and elects a majority of the
members of the three principal federal party commit-
tees (Executive, Policy, and Conference), whose other
members represent the parliamentary party, local
councillors, and Scottish and Welsh parties. At least
one-third of the directly elected members of each com-
mittee must be women. The federal party leader must
be an MP nominated and seconded by other MPs and
supported by at least 200 members of at least 20 local
parties and is elected, usually for the term of a Parlia-
ment, by a ballot of all party members.
The party president is elected for two years by a bal-
lot of all party members and chairs the federal execu-
tive, which directs the work of the federal party. The
conference committee organizes and sets the agendas
for the federal conference. The federal policy commit-
tee consists of the party leader; one MP each from
England, Scotland, Wales, the parliamentary party as
a whole, and the House of Lords; the party president;
three local authority members elected by their peers;
two representatives each from the Scottish and Welsh
parties; and fifteen persons elected annually by the
federal conference. The FPC prepares policy papers for
the conferences and writes the national election mani-
festos in collaboration with the parliamentary party
and based on conference resolutions.
The state parties oversee the local organizations
and the selection of parliamentary candidates and
define (in Scotland and Wales) party policy on state
issues. The English party is divided into 12 regions.
Delegates from the regions form the English council,
which is the sovereign body of the English party and
elects its executive. The Scottish party has a conference,
executive, and policy committee. The Welsh party has a
council, national executive, and policy subcommittee.
The basic units of the party are the local parties,
based on one or more parliamentary constituen-
cies. Parliamentary candidates are selected by vote of
the members of the constituency associations. Party
candidate selection shortlists must be at least one-
third women. The Liberal Democrats are affiliated
internationally with the Liberal International and the
European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party of the
European Union.
Their main auxiliary organizations are the youth
and student Liberal Democrats, the women Liberal
Democrats, the association of Liberal Democrat trade
unionists, and the association of Liberal Democrat
councillors.
POLICY
Traditional Liberal policies occupied a middle ground
between Labour and the Conservatives and firmly
resisted social and political polarization between big
trade unions and big business. The Liberal Demo-
crats seem to be following largely in that tradition.
The party officially adopted a position of policy
equidistance from the Conservative and Labour par-
ties, a principle abandoned in 1995, and after the
Labour Party reforms implemented by Tony Blair in
the 1990s, some policy analysts have suggested that
the Liberal Democrats are the most left-wing of the
country’s main parties. They elevate “three enduring
principles above all others: liberty, equality, and com-
munity.” Longtime policy positions of the party have
been the introduction of a proportional representa-
tion electoral system, governmental decentralization,
an elected Scottish assembly, greater power sharing
with the European Union, conversion of the House
of Lords into an elected body, fixed dates for parlia-
mentary elections, an end to official secrecy, a written
constitution and bill of rights, a supreme court, addi-
tional protection for women and minorities, reform
of the taxation and social welfare systems, and strin-
gent environmental protection.
MEMBERSHIP AND CONSTITUENCY
Total membership is about 100,000, down from about
160,000 at the time of the merger. Party members are
disproportionately middle-class and well-educated.
Support for the party among voters is highest among
the middle class, the religiously nonconformist or
atheist, and in southwestern England and in parts of
Scotland. Voting for the party, however, is highly vola-
tile in comparison to the Labour and Conservative
parties, as a significant share of votes for the Liberal
Democrats are cast by electors who wish to protest
against one of the two main parties. They tend to
be workers upset at the Labour Party or middle-class
voters who register similar dissatisfaction with the
Conservative Party.
FINANCING
The Liberal Democrats financial position is quite poor
in comparison to that of the Labour and Conservative
parties. Without traditional ties to the trade unions
or to business and industry, the party relies heavily on
income raised through individual memberships and

private donations. It also raises money through lotter-
ies, bazaars, and other functions. The parliamentary
party receives a small government subsidy.
PROSPECTS
The Liberal Democrats are stronger than any third
party has been since before World War II. They do well
consistently in public opinion polls, parliamentary by-
elections, and local elections and held a record number
of seats in Parliament in 1997, 2001, and 2005. How-
ever, unless the electoral system is reformed radically,
it is unlikely that they will emerge from their minor-
party status. This leaves a “hung parliament” as their
best bet to share power. If neither major party were to
win a parliamentary majority, the Liberal Democrats
would be well placed for coalition membership. They
could then use that position to secure governmental
adoption of some of their key policies.
Minor Political Parties
SCOTTISH NATIONAL PARTY (SNP)
The SNP was founded in 1934 and won parliamentary
seats in by-elections in 1945, 1967, and 1973. Except
for one seat in 1970, it won no representation in gen-
eral elections before February 1974. In that election it
captured 7 of Scotland’s 71 seats with 21.9 percent of
the vote. It peaked in October 1974, with 11 seats and
30.4 percent. From 1979 through 1992, however, it
won only two or three seats in each election, though in
1992 it won more than one-fifth of the Scottish vote.
The party was able to capitalize on dissatisfaction with
the governing Conservative Party in 1997, winning six
seats in the House of Commons. In 2001 it won one-
fifth of the votes in Scotland and five seats; in 2005 it
won six seats.
The SNP supported the minority Labour govern-
ment until the failure of the devolution referendum
of March 1979. The great weakness of the SNP since
1974 has been its inability to concentrate its elector-
ate sufficiently to convert its substantial support into
parliamentary seats. The SNP does much better in local
council elections. It also does well in elections to the
Scottish Parliament. In 1999 it won 27 percent of the
regional vote and 35 seats in the Scottish Parliament,
finishing second to the Labour Party. In 2003, how-
ever, its seat total dropped to 27. The SNP is a social
democratic party whose distinctive appeal is its advo-
cacy of independence for Scotland. Its membership is
around 50,000 people.
United Kingdom 1425
PLAID CYRMU–THE PARTY OF
WALES
The Plaid Cyrmu–The Party of Wales is a Welsh coun-
terpart of the SNP. It was founded in 1925 but neither
contested parliamentary elections until 1945 nor won
a seat (in a by-election) until July 1966. Its first gen-
eral election successes were in February 1974, when
it won 2 of the 36 Welsh seats and 10.8 percent of
its vote. From 1979 to 2005 it generally won about 7
to 10 percent of the Welsh vote and between two and
four seats in the House of Commons. In the first elec-
tions to the Welsh Assembly in 1999, the party won
30 percent of the vote and 17 seats (28 percent). Like
the SNP, in the second regional assembly elections its
support decline; in 2003 it won only 12 seats in the
assembly. It consistently polls a much smaller percent-
age of its country’s vote than does the SNP but wins a
larger share of the seats because its electorate is much
more heavily concentrated in the Welsh-speaking West
and North. Its program advocates self-government for
Wales, promotion of Welsh language and culture, and
a sharply progressive taxation system.
See separate article on NORTHERN IRELAND for
descriptions of its parties.
BRITISH NATIONAL PARTY (BNP)
The BNP was founded in 1982 by John Tyndall and
other defectors from the National Front, an extremist
fascist party that formed in 1967. The BNP generally
nominates candidates in about 5 percent to 10 per-
cent of all seats. Though it has never won a seat in the
House of Commons (in 2005 its candidates combined
to win 174,000 votes), it has elected several local coun-
cillors, particularly in areas with a large proportion of
ethnic minorities. In the elections to the European
Parliament in 2004, the BNP had its best performance,
winning more than 800,000 votes—nearly 5 percent
of the total votes cast. The party opposes immigration
and racial integration. It also endorses the “voluntary”
resettlement of nonwhites to “their lands of ethnic
origin.” Its membership is less than 1,000.
GREEN PARTY
The Ecology Party was founded in 1973 and changed
its name in 1985. Its main goal is to protect the envi-
ronment, but it also takes traditional leftist positions
on such questions as disarmament, aid to developing
countries, and redistributive economic and financial
policies. It has never won more than 1 percent of the
vote in parliamentary elections but reached 14.9 per-
1426 World Encyclopedia of Political Systems and Parties
cent for the 1989 European Parliament. In the early
21st century, it scored several electoral successes. In
2003 it won 7 percent of the party preference vote and
seven seats in the Scottish Parliament. The following
year it won more than 1 million votes and two seats
in elections to the European Parliament. In 2005 it
increased its vote share by four-tenths of 1 percent. The
party also maintains representation on several local
councils. “Electoralists,” who want more attention
given to winning elections, vie for party control with
“decentralists,” who emphasize extraparliamentary
forms of action.
OTHER MINOR PARTIES
In addition, there are more than 150 other parties. The
most successful has been the United Kingdom Inde-
pendence Party (UKIP), which opposes the country’s
membership in the European Union. In the European
Parliament election of 2004, the UKIP finished third,
winning 16.1 percent of the vote and 12 seats. Most
minor candidates win only a handful of votes, though
in recent years well-known independents, such as the
popular BBC correspondent Martin Bell in 1997, have
won election as independents either to the regional
parliaments or to the House of Commons. Bell was the
first nonparty candidate to win a seat since university
seats were abolished in 1950.
Other Political Forces
Given the open democratic system within the United
Kingdom, there are several institutions that exert an
influence over the political process. Since the United
Kingdom joined the European Economic Community
(now the European Union) in the 1970s, the European
issue has been central to political debate. The issue cuts
across party lines and has not been a pivotal issue in
general elections. It has, however, been important in
European elections, in which opponents of Britain’s
membership in the European Union (such as the
United Kingdom Independence Party) have sometimes
been able to siphon votes from the major parties. Mil-
lionaires disenchanted with the position of the Conser-
vative Party have often funded such parties. The media,
particularly the BBC and the tabloid press, also have a
great impact on the political process. Free from politi-
cal controls, the commercial press is far from neutral
(newspapers and magazines are often associated with
a particularly political party or ideology) and regularly
uses its position to support or oppose a particular point
of view and political party.
Interests, particularly economic interests, are well
organized. Corporate interests are represented through
a wide variety of organizations, including the Con-
federation of British Industry, which has traditionally
backed the Conservative Party but also lobbies Labour
governments for policies beneficial to business. The
Labour Party, which developed from the trade union
movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries,
generally has garnered the support of most trade
unionists, but in the 1980s large numbers of unionists
backed the Conservative Party under Margaret Thatcher,
and Labour Party reforms and policies adopted in the
1990s and the early 21st century undercut the influ-
ence of the trade unions within the party and reduced
the level of support for the party from the movement.
Nevertheless, the major unions, such as the General,
Municipal, and Boilermakers’ Union (GMB), Unison
(a public sector union), and the Transport and General
Workers’ Union, continue to form a base of support for
the Labour Party. Other interests, including (at various
times) antiwar and antinuclear groups, environmental
organizations, and supporters and opponents of fox
hunting, are also well organized and have held demon-
strations and utilized lobbying efforts to influence the
government of the day.
National Prospects
Great Britain’s decline in relative economic strength,
international importance, social cohesion, and politi-
cal and governmental efficiency seems to have been
slowed and perhaps halted since the early 1980s. The
excessively high inflation rate that dogged the economy
for years has slackened appreciably, and the unem-
ployment rate is consistently well below the European
average. During the 1990s and the early 21st century,
the country played a leading role in international cri-
ses, such as the Persian Gulf Wars in 1991 and 2003.
It has also been a central player in the global war
against terrorism. However, Britain has no realistic
aspiration of recovering great-power status, and its
ambivalent attitude toward the European Union costs
it much influence there. Violence in Northern Ireland
that sometimes spread to English cities was a blot on
Britain’s social harmony for many years but may have
ended with the recent agreements.
The devolution measures of the late 1990s may
have ended the persistent grumbling of the Scots and
Welsh over English rule. They may also signal an end

to the rising party fragmentation and more ideological
tone in political discourse that began in the late 1970s.
On the other hand, there is a very pervasive public
attitude of cynicism and distrust toward politics. In
the past, political conflict was sometimes attenuated
by the almost universal respect and affection shown
toward the royal family, but even that has been badly
undermined. In 2005 the UK was shocked by terrorist
bombings carried out in London by Islamic militants
born and raised in the UK.
Further Reading
Blackburn, Robert. The Electoral System in Britain. London:
Macmillan, 1995.
Borthwick, R. L., Donald Shell, and Richard Hodder-
Williams, eds. Churchill to Major: The British Prime Min-
istership since 1945. Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1995.
Brazier, Rodney. Ministers of the Crown. Oxford: Clarendon,
1997.
Budge, Ian, et al. The New British Politics. 3d ed. New York:
Longman, 2004.
Butler, David, and Gareth Butler. Twentieth-century Brit-
ish Political Facts, 1990–2000. 8th ed. New York: St.
Martin’s Press, 2000.
United Kingdom 1427
Fisher, Justin. British Political Parties. London: Prentice Hall,
1996.
Jefferys, Kevin, ed. Leading Labour: From Keir Hardie to Tony
Blair. New York: I.B. Tauris, 1999.
Jones, Bill. Politics UK. 5th ed. New York: Pearson Education,
2004.
Krieger, Joel. British Politics in the Global Age. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1999.
MacIver, D. N., ed. The Liberal Democrats. London: Prentice
Hall, 1996.
Madgwick, Peter James. The Law and Politics of the Constitu-
tion of the United Kingdom. New York: Harvester Wheat-
sheaf, 1995.
Mellors, C., D. Darcy, and R. Clements. The New House of
Commons: A Social Profile. London: House of Commons
Library, 1997.
Norton, Philip. The British Polity. 4th ed. New York: Long-
man, 2001.
————, ed. The Conservative Party. London: Prentice Hall,
1996.
Pelling, Henry, and Alastair J. Reid. A Short History of the
Labour Party. 11th ed. Basingstoke, England: Macmillan,
1996.
Smith, Martin J. The Core Executive in Britain. New York: St.
Martin’s Press, 1999.
Studlar, Donley. Great Britain: Decline or Renewal? Boulder,
Colo.: Westview Press, 1996.
 NORTHERN IRELAND
(Ulster)
By William G. Andrews, Ph.D.
Revised by Paolo Morisi

N orthern Ireland is a political division of the

United Kingdom consisting of the six northeast-
ern counties (population over 1.7 million as of 2001)
of the island of Ireland, most of the traditional Irish
province of Ulster. Great Britain and Northern Ireland
have been linked closely since the 12th century, when
Henry II of England conquered large parts of Ireland.
After 1537 the indigenous Irish remained Catholic,
while most settlers from England and Scotland turned
Protestant. During the 17th century, especially in
Ulster, Catholic Irish were driven off the land, which
was turned over to Protestant settlers. The 1800 British
Act of Union gave Ireland representation in the British
Parliament and abolished the Irish Parliament. In the
19th and early 20th centuries agitation against British
rule grew throughout the island, supported mainly by
Catholics. Protestants had formed the Orange Order
in 1795 to advocate union with Great Britain. By 1905
the various unionist (supporters of union with Great
Britain) groups united in the Ulster Unionist Council.
In 1921 they blocked inclusion of Ulster in the Irish
Free State. Instead, the Government of Ireland Act
established a separate Northern Ireland that was gov-
erned until 1972 by a locally elected Parliament and
government located at Stormont responsible to the
central government in London.
Protestants dominate the six northeastern coun-
ties, but many Catholics, who are a majority in the
island as a whole, have never accepted the division
of Ireland. Tension between the two communities
generated a militant Catholic civil rights movement
in the late 1960s that erupted in widespread violence
in 1969. The governments responded by strengthen-
ing the security forces and suspending certain civil
liberties and procedural rights. Violence escalated to
a peak of 10,628 shootings, 468 deaths, and 4,876
injuries in 1972. As a result, the British government
assumed direct authority over internal security in
March 1972. This precipitated the resignation of the
Stormont government, dissolution of its Parliament,
and assumption by London of direct control over
all governmental functions. The disorder diminished
under direct British rule, although by 2003 it had cost
some 3,349 lives.
Successive British governments after 1972 initiated
projects designed to return home rule to the province.
The projects included an element of power-sharing
between the two national groups in the form of a
grand coalition government between nationalists and
unionists and the adoption of special majorities in the
local assembly. The most important of them led to the
Sunningdale agreement of 1973, the Anglo-Irish agree-
ment of 1985, and the Good Friday agreement of 1998.
The first two collapsed quickly as a result of widespread
opposition in the Protestant community. The last-
named followed a three-year complicated process. The
prime ministers of the United Kingdom and the Repub-
lic of Ireland agreed in 1995 on a “Framework Docu-
ment” that set forth basic principles for a settlement.
This led to a May 1996 election of a Northern Ireland
“Forum” that, in turn, chose the representatives who
negotiated the April 1998 accord. That agreement had

1428
1430 World Encyclopedia of Political Systems and Parties
bly elections the DUP overtook the UUP, becoming
the biggest unionist party. Following the elections the
British government restarted negotiations to establish
a new power-sharing executive, but the DUP has so far
refused to govern in a coalition with nationalists until
the IRA fully decommissions and disbands (something
that it promised to do in July 2005). If a new power-
sharing agreement does materialize, it will have to be
supported by the two extreme wings (SF and DUP) of
the Northern Irish party system.
The System of
Government
EXECUTIVE
The executive authority for the policy areas under the
jurisdiction of the Northern Ireland Office (NIO) of the
British government remains with that agency until devo-
lution is reinstated. That ministry is headed by a cabinet
member, a secretary of state who is assisted by five junior
ministers. When the devolution process is reinstated, the
NIO or some other ministry in the British government
will administer the “excepted matters” that are to remain
under direct Westminster control indefinitely and will
approve or disallow Northern Ireland Assembly (NIA)
legislation with respect to “reserved matters.”
The Northern Ireland government, called the
“Executive Committee of the Assembly,” consists of
a first minister, deputy first minister, and 10 depart-
mental ministers. The two leaders are elected jointly by
the Assembly on a cross-community basis that ensures,
in effect, that a mainstream Protestant becomes first
minister, a mainstream Catholic is deputy first minis-
ter, and both are acceptable to both communities. The
rest of the government is composed so that it reflects
the partisan makeup of the Assembly. The depart-
ments established in December 1998 were agriculture,
culture, education and learning, enterprise, trade and
development, environment, finance, health and social
services, regional development, and social develop-
ment. Each minister is responsible for administering
a department. The members of the government are
responsible collectively to the Assembly and individu-
ally to their party caucuses.
In addition, the Good Friday agreement created
three executive consultation councils, two commis-
sions, and a corporatist “Civic Forum.” A North-South
Ministerial Council brings together members of the
Irish and Northern Irish governments to facilitate coop-
eration in policy areas including agriculture, education,
health, environment, social security, welfare, tourism,
European Union programs, fisheries, urban and rural
development, and transport. A British-Irish Council is a
consultative organ for representatives of the British and
Irish governments and “devolved institutions in North-
ern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales” and the Isle of Man
and the Channel Islands “to promote the harmonious
and mutually beneficial development of the totality of
relationships among the peoples of these islands.” The
British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference is com-
posed of representatives of the U.K. and Irish Republic
governments as a venue to consult on matters of mutual
interest, especially with respect to Northern Ireland.
An Equality Commission is responsible for promoting
greater political, social, and economic equality for the
Catholic community, and a Human Rights Commission
has the role of advancing the protection of civil rights
and liberties. The Civic Forum is a consultative body
of representatives of business, trade unions, churches,
and voluntary organizations concerned with social, eco-
nomic, and cultural issues.
In 1998 there were delays in implementing the
Good Friday agreement as unionists refused to estab-
lish the institutions of devolved government until
there was progress on the issue of IRA decommission-
ing. Eventually the UUP was persuaded to enter into
an executive with SF and the SDLP, and devolution of
powers from Westminster in London to Stormont in
Belfast occurred on December 2, 1999.
At the beginning of February 2000 the UUP pro-
tested against the lack of progress on decommissioning
and indicated that it would resign from the executive.
On February 11, 2000, the British government sus-
pended the executive and the institutions of govern-
ment in Northern Ireland and reintroduced direct rule
from Westminster.
The British government restored devolution to the
Northern Ireland Assembly and the power-sharing
executive in May 2000 following an IRA initiative that
opened up its arms dumps to international mediators.
The IRA began to formally decommission in October
2001 but the UUP remained vulnerable to attack from
the DUP. In 2002 the executive and Assembly were sus-
pended again to stave off the resignation of the UUP,
and direct rule was resumed.
LEGISLATURE
Of the 646 members of the British House of Commons,
18 are elected by a simple plurality from single-member
constituencies in Ulster. The 2005 parliamentary election

results, in percentage of the Ulster vote and seats were:
DUP, 9 seats; SF, 5 seats; SDLP, 3 seats; UUP, 1 seat;
and APNI, no seats.
A Northern Ireland Assembly was set up by
the Northern Ireland Constitution Act of 1973 and
reconstituted by the Northern Ireland Act of 1982
as a scrutinizing, consultative, and deliberative body
to which executive and legislative authority would be
transferred when the rival communities could agree
on its form. This was assumed to mean support by 70
percent of the reconstituted Assembly membership.
The first elections to the reconstituted Assembly were
held in October 1982, but the body failed to produce
satisfactory results and was suspended permanently in
1986. The Northern Ireland Forum was set up under
the 1995 Framework Document as a popularly elective
consultative assembly to oversee the negotiations that
led to the Good Friday agreement.
The Assembly is a limited parliamentary body with
108 members. It exercises legislative authority in North-
ern Ireland for the policy areas transferred from the NIO.
Northern Ireland 1431
Also, when authorized by the NIO, it may do so for a long
list of “reserved matters,” including law enforcement,
international trade, most forms of communication and
transportation, and financial institutions. The “excepted
matters” that remain permanently under the jurisdiction
of Westminster include defense, the judiciary, United
Kingdom and preexisting NI taxes, elections, immigra-
tion and naturalization, and the monetary system. The
Good Friday agreement included provisions on the inter-
nal procedures of the Assembly to ensure that minority
interests are protected. For instance, the allocation of
committee chairs and memberships and ministerial port-
folios must reflect party strengths. Also, all key decisions
require a majority of both unionist and nationalist MPs
or 60 percent of those present and voting, including at
least 40 percent of each of those groups.
JUDICIARY
The three-tiered court system of Northern Ireland
consists of the Supreme Court (comprising the High
1432 World Encyclopedia of Political Systems and Parties

Court, the Court of Appeals, and the Crown Court), ment, any residual powers go directly to the district
the county courts, and the magistrates’ courts. The councils. The councils are responsible for provision of
Belfast agreement leaves the Northern Ireland judicial recreational, social, community, and cultural facilities
system under the direct control of the British govern- and refuse collection. They nominate representatives
ment indefinitely. to various bodies that administer regional functions
Twenty-five petty sessions districts form eight such as library services, fire protection, and electricity
county court divisions and four county court cir- supply.
cuits. The lord chancellor, appointed by London, is They also present the views of the population on
responsible for administering all courts in Northern regional affairs to the appropriate section of the Secre-
Ireland through the Northern Ireland Court Service tary of State’s office. The latter is meant to assure that
and is responsible for the appointment of judges no district suffers discrimination.
and resident magistrates. Appeals from the Court
of Appeals go directly to the British House of Lords RESULTS OF RECENT COUNCIL
only in those matters the House or the Court think ELECTIONS (% OF VOTE)
to be of overriding importance. In criminal cases,
1993 1997 2001 2005
the Court must certify that a point of law of general
public importance is involved. These restrictions Ulster Unionist Party 29 28 23 18
effectively minimize the number of cases going to
the House of Lords. Democratic Unionist Party 17 16 21 30

Social Democratic
REGIONAL AND LOCAL and Labour Party 22 21 19 17
GOVERNMENT
Sinn Féin 13 17 21 24
The local governmental system consists of six coun-
ties and 26 municipalities. Each county is governed by Alliance Party 8 7 5 5
a lord lieutenant and a high sheriff. Each municipal-
ity has a district or borough council, ranging from 16 Others 11 11 16 6
to 51 members. The 582 councillors are elected for
four-year terms by proportional representation. Since
most government power is concentrated in London
without an effective intermediate regional govern-
The Electoral System
RESULTS OF 2003 NI ASSEMBLY Under the Good Friday agreement, elections to the
ELECTIONS Northern Ireland Assembly use a proportional repre-
sentation system with single transferable vote within
Party % of Vote Number of Seats
the constituencies drawn for elections to the British
House of Commons. Six members are chosen from
DUP 25.71 30 each of the 18 districts. This system tends to protect
the rights of minority parties, especially those repre-
SF 23.52 24
senting Catholic voters. Elections to the British House
UUP 22.68 27 of Commons use the same single-member plurality
system as does the United Kingdom.
SDLP 16.99 18 Local district elections absorb much of the ener-
gies of the political parties. Even though the powers
APNI 3.67 6 of the district councils are not significant, these
elections indicate the sentiments of the people at
INDEPENDENT 2.78 1 the grassroots level. Also, they serve as the pivot
of the Irish tradition of political localism in which
PUP 1.16 1
municipal politicians intercede with government
UKUP 0.82 1 for their constituents in return for their votes. This
localism, in turn, forms the basis of provincial politi-
Turnout 63.05% cal organization.

Eligible voters in local elections are British sub-
jects at least 18 years old, who were born in Northern
Ireland (or have resided continuously in the United
Kingdom for seven years) and have resided in the
constituency or elsewhere in Northern Ireland for
three months. At the polling station, each qualified
voter receives an officially stamped paper ballot that
lists candidates in alphabetical order. The polling offi-
cer marks the register at the voter’s name to indicate
that a ballot was issued. Voting is secret. The single-
transferable-vote electoral system has been used since
1977. The voter may rank all candidates on the ballot.
Votes not needed to elect a voter’s first choice go to
the voter’s second choice.
To get on the ballot, a candidate must make a
deposit of about $240. The populations and council
sizes of the districts vary greatly. For instance, in one
recent election Belfast had about 318,000 voters and
51 councillors, while Moyle had only some 15,000 vot-
ers and 16 councillors. Overall, small towns and rural
areas are overrepresented in the councils. Protestant
and Catholic populations, though generally concen-
trated in specific areas, are nearly evenly distributed
along the urban-rural spectrum.
The Party System
ORIGINS OF THE PARTIES
The political parties of Northern Ireland originated
in and relate to the sectarian strife of the province.
The basic political cleavage of the party system is the
constitutional position of Northern Ireland within the
United Kingdom.
The unionist parties (Ulster Unionists, Demo-
cratic Unionists, and their spin-offs) are based in the
Protestant community and favor close governmental
ties with Great Britain. The nationalist parties (Social
Democratic and Labor Party and Sinn Féin) are Roman
Catholic and advocate the incorporation of Ulster
into the Republic of Ireland. Also, the unionist parties
are staunchly conservative socially and economically,
while the nationalists have a pronounced leftist bent.
Only the Alliance Party and the Women’s Coalition
appeal to members of both sectarian communities and
urge a constitutional solution acceptable to both. Their
social and economic policies are centrist. Party com-
petition takes place primarily within the nationalist
and unionist blocs and this fragmentation of political
representation of the two main political traditions
has hindered considerably the attempt to stabilize
Northern Ireland 1433
the region through power sharing. Every time that
moderate unionists and nationalists seek to compro-
mise, they find themselves outflanked by more radical
parties within their bloc that mobilize voters against
reconciliation. This centrifugal direction of party com-
petition, witnessed by the rise between 2001 and 2005
of the DUP at the expense of the more moderate UUP,
undermined the stability of the devolved government,
causing its collapse in 2002.
There are also militant groups such as the IRA
and the UDA whose actions on the ground (killings,
protests, parades) have at different times increased the
ideological polarization between the two communities.
THE PARTIES IN LAW
Parties are very important in Northern Ireland. The
weighting of their representation in the NI Assembly
is carefully regulated by the international agreement
to ensure that the views of all parts of the fragmented
Ulster community are fairly represented and that no
plurality can impose its will at the expense of other
important groups. Partisanship is the basis of all politi-
cal activity and much of the social and economic orga-
nization as well. This is especially true at the local level
and in the allocation of jobs, housing, street cleaning,
and general public services. Local and national party
structures are tightly integrated. The national leaders
have great influence over candidate selection for local
elections. However, they must keep in tune with the
members at the local level or lose votes to another
party. Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party gained
support after 1973 at the expense of the Official (now
Ulster) Unionist Party, because many traditional OUP
supporters did not perceive the party as being aggres-
sive enough in denouncing terrorism and cooperation
with the Republic. Also, the PSF (now SF) emerged as
a major party in the early 1980s largely because it built
an elaborate grassroots organization and appealed to
the sense of injustice of the more radical members
of the Catholic community. In the major parties, the
party leader is selected from the elected representatives
to the local councils. In minor parties, the procedure
varies. Parties linked to paramilitary groups choose
their leaders through “unofficial” channels, while
other small parties elect leaders by vote of all dues-
paying members.
CAMPAIGNING
Campaigning varies depending upon the importance of
the party. They all use mass mailings, posters, rallies,
attendance of candidates at local functions, television
1434 World Encyclopedia of Political Systems and Parties
and radio talk shows, and house-to-house canvass-
ing. In the larger parties, the provincial leaders have
nominal control over expenditures. However, since
campaign funds are raised locally, the local committees
have a good deal to say about how the money is spent.
Splinter groups tend to exert tighter control.
Major Political Parties
ALLIANCE PARTY OF NORTHERN
IRELAND (APNI OR AP)
HISTORY
The APNI was formed in 1970 by a defecting faction
from the Official Unionist Party, led by Captain Ter-
ence O’Neill, some Liberals, and some members of the
New Ulster Movement in reaction to the strife of the
late 1960s. It has never elected an MP to Westminster,
but in 1996 its then leader, John Alderdice, became
a life peer with a voice in the House of Lords. It has
had more success in local and provincial politics, espe-
cially in Greater Belfast. Its main purpose is to bridge
the sectarian communities and promote agreement
on a compromise constitutional settlement. Its peak
support was 14.4 percent of the vote in 1977 coun-
cil elections, but more recently it has hovered in the
3–6 percent range (5 percent in 2005). The AP was
involved in the talks that led to the agreement in April
1998 and subsequently supported the “Yes” campaign
in the referendum campaign in May 1998. In the
Northern Ireland Assembly elections in June 1998, the
party gained 6.5 percent of the vote and five seats, but
it failed to gain a seat in the executive. Throughout the
first term of the Assembly (1998–2003), AP remained
committed to the agreement. This was illustrated in
November 2001 when three of the party’s assembly
members were re-designated as unionists to allow for
the reelection of David Trimble as first minister. In the
delayed Assembly elections in November 2003 it man-
aged to retain its six seats but its share of the vote fell
to 3.68 percent.
ORGANIZATION
The AP is the least homogeneous of the four major
parties. Being “nondoctrinaire,” it has attracted mem-
bers from both sides of the sectarian divide. The party
is based on 33 geographically based associations that
send six delegates each to the party council, the gov-
erning body that meets quarterly. The council appoints
the party executive committee that meets frequently;
there is an annual conference. Because of the sectar-
ian nature of Ulster politics, the AP is always in danger
of having the middle ground cut out from under it.
Its organization tends to be strongest where the two
religious communities are fairly evenly balanced in
population, especially the more affluent and intellec-
tual neighborhoods. A prime example is the integrated
quarters around Queen’s University, Belfast. The AP
has little organization in such areas as Fermanagh and
Armagh, where Republican sentiment is strong, and it
is not strongly supported in heavily Loyalist areas. Its
official publication is the Alliance Newspaper (circula-
tion 7,000).
POLICY
The party policy is to be nondoctrinaire. The AP is a
nonsectarian moderate unionist group, committed to
maintaining ties with Britain. It advocates reform of
Ulster’s political system, but only with the consent of
the people. It believes in “respect for all sections of our
community” and “the widest possible participation in
government and decision making.” This has led it to
endorse the Anglo-Irish and Good Friday agreements.
It favors retaining the present social welfare program
but wants the government to discourage sectarianism
to improve the business climate, get people off welfare,
and reduce government expenditure. The party has
avoided internally divisive issues such as divorce laws.
MEMBERSHIP AND CONSTITUENCY
In 2002 the APNI had approximately 4,500 members.
Membership was down from 10,000 in 1981. Some
of its Protestant members moved to unionist parties,
while some Catholics were lost to the SDLP. The most
loyal supporters of the APNI tend to be of moderate
religious persuasion and from the commercial and
industrial interests of Belfast or other large towns in
the more prosperous northern areas. A large propor-
tion of the members are students and faculty from
Queen’s University. The Alliance is the only party with
a fairly even religious balance among its supporters. A
1983 survey found them to be 54 percent Protestant
and 45 percent Catholic. Also, it was the only party to
draw a majority of its support from the middle class,
having 54 percent in that category and 46 percent from
the working class.
FINANCING
Members are encouraged to contribute as much as
they can afford. No fixed scale has been set. Contri-
butions are solicited from businesses, individuals, and
associations.

The SF would now participate in elections in both parts
of Ireland, but its successful candidates would abstain
from assuming office. Later that ban was relaxed to
permit full involvement in the work of local councils in
Catholic municipalities of Northern Ireland, the Euro-
pean Parliament, and, finally, at Westminster. During
the round of negotiations that led to the Good Friday
agreement, SF was fully engaged and, following that
major event, it was also able to get the IRA to decom-
mission some of its weapons, a measure that only a
decade ago seemed highly improbable. This policy shift
toward compromise and moderation has allowed SF to
broaden its appeal. In recent years SF’s electoral sup-
port has grown markedly. The party overtook the SDLP
as the leading representative of northern nationalism
in the 2001 Westminster general elections and made
further gains at the expense of the SDLP in the 2003
Northern Ireland Assembly elections.
The party is still committed to a united Ireland,
but it has embraced constitutional means to achieve
its goal.
ORGANIZATION
The policy-making body in SF is the annual conference
composed of delegates from its constituent branches
and the regional councils in Northern Ireland and in
the Republic of Ireland. At the conference all major
decisions are taken including the election of the party
president, the national officers, and the national
executive. The national executive is a 10-member body
responsible for the SF’s administrative affairs and
policy making.
The SF has made strenuous efforts since 1981 to
organize an elaborate grassroots structure in Northern
Ireland. For instance, it is said to have the best politi-
cal machine in Belfast. In particular, it has established
“advice centers” in Catholic areas to assist residents
in dealing with the government. It endeavors with
considerable success to show concern and ability to
solve such everyday problems as housing, pensions,
and welfare aid. On the other hand, it does nothing
political in Protestant neighborhoods and very little in
integrated communities.
POLICY
The overriding goal of the SF is to establish a unified,
democratic, neutral, Irish republic. Historically, it
argued that this required armed revolution to drive out
the British and overthrow the constitutional govern-
ment of the Republic of Ireland. However, in recent
decades it has evolved into a somewhat less radical and
violent organization. Initially, this change was designed
Northern Ireland 1437
to “broaden and popularize” support for its armed
struggle. In one famous formulation, “With a ballot in
one hand and an Armalite [rifle] in the other, we can
take power in Ireland.” This led, first, to concentration
of its violence on British and Ulster security forces
rather than on individuals and, then, to a cease-fire
in 1994 and participation in the process that led to
the Good Friday agreement and its implementation.
Cease-fire did not, however, mean disarmament, and
the policy of the SF and IRA was to refuse to give up
arms until that agreement was fully implemented and
the two-year deadline it specified was met. In 2005 the
IRA finally agreed to give up its arms.
Along with the softening of its military stance has
come some moderation of its political agenda. It began
as a Socialist party. Before 1981 it pursued openly a
practice of “immiserization,” deliberately sabotaging
the economic and social programs of the government
to sap the British treasury and discourage capitalists.
Since then its position has been more constructive,
advocating positive measures and criticizing specific
shortcomings of the government. Now its professed
goals include the achievement of Irish unity and the
establishment of a left-of-center political coalition in
the Irish Republic that will adopt a more progressive
taxation system. Also, unlike the other major Ulster
parties, it abjures a religious commitment, although its
leaders are all practicing Catholics.
MEMBERSHIP AND CONSTITUENCY
Membership is a cloudy concept for a semiclandestine
organization such as the IRA/SF, especially as it has
close affinity to Lenin’s “professional revolutionary”
cadre structure. Its supporters are the most radical and
disaffected elements in the Catholic community, espe-
cially in those areas where Catholics are concentrated
most heavily and are poorest, such as West Belfast. One
survey showed them to be 98 percent Catholic and 2
percent “other,” with none at all professing Protestant-
ism. Also, it is one of the most solidly working class of
the Ulster parties, 60 percent in that category and 40
percent middle class. Another striking characteristic of
the SF voters is their background of political absten-
tion. The initial SF rise did not erode SDLP support
appreciably, contrary to early expectations, and coin-
cided with an increase in turnout. This suggests that
it originally appealed mainly to Catholic electors who
had found none of the older parties sufficiently attrac-
tive to warrant a vote. After 1994 SF began to compete
for moderate voters that typically supported the SDLP.
In the 2003 Northern Ireland Assembly elections, SF
for the first time received more votes than the SDLP,

LEADERSHIP
Party leadership is concentrated in the 40-to-60-
year-old age bracket. Party leaders since O’Neill have
included Oliver John Napier (born 1935), leader
1973–84, member NT Forum 1995; John Cushnahan
(born 1948), leader 1984–87, general secretary 1974–
82; John Lord Alderdice of Knock (born 1955), psychi-
atrist, leader 1987–98, interim speaker NIA 1998–99;
Sean Neeson, leader 1998–2001, NIA 1998– ; Seamus
Close, deputy leader, NIA 1998– ; David Ford, leader
2001– , general secretary 1990–2001, member NIA
1998– ; and Eileen Bell, deputy leader 2001– , member
NIA 1998– .
PROSPECTS
The conflict in Northern Ireland appears too deeply
rooted to permit a nonsectarian party like the Alli-
ance to flourish. It faces a virtually insoluble dilemma.
When conflict and violence are rife, the communities
are polarized and conciliation is extremely difficult.
On the other hand, when the larger parties moderate
their stands and move toward a resolution of their
differences, they become more attractive to moderate
voters because they wield more power and influence.
Its appeal seems doomed to be restricted to a largely
intellectual, middle-to-upper-class urban clientele, a
small minority.
DEMOCRATIC UNIONIST PARTY
(DUP)
HISTORY
The DUP was founded as the Protestant Unionist
Associations in 1969 by Reverend Ian Paisley and the
then MP for Shankill, Desmond Boal, who had been
expelled from the unionist parliamentary party.
It was formed specifically to oppose the politics of
the government of Terence O’Neill of the Ulster Union-
ists, whose attitude toward the Republic was viewed by
Paisley and Boal as too conciliatory. In an April 1970
by-election Paisley defeated O’Neill for a seat in the
Stormont Parliament. Although Boal was the first party
chairman (1971–74), Paisley was the real leader from
the beginning. The DUP increased in strength rapidly
from its founding to win 27 percent of the vote in the
1981 local elections. In the November 2003 Northern
Ireland Assembly elections the DUP pulled ahead of
the UUP gaining 25.71 percent of the vote and 30
seats in becoming the biggest unionist party. With
subsequent defections from its main political rival, the
DUP gained three additional seats in January 2004. In
Northern Ireland 1435
addition, the DUP has nine members in Parliament at
Westminster as of 2005.
The DUP has traditionally led the opposition to
power sharing between unionists and nationalists and
has called for a ban of SF from the political process.
During the first term of the Northern Ireland Assem-
bly (1998–2003) the DUP opposed the pro-agreement
unionist camp and obstructed the implementation of
the agreement.
Since the 2003 elections the British and Irish
governments have worked to recompose the power-
sharing executive, but the DUP has so far been opposed
to an agreement with nationalists.
ORGANIZATION
The party structure is based on local branches for each
of the 18 Westminster constituencies. They elect del-
egates to a central delegates’ assembly, which is domi-
nated by Paisley. The DUP party structure also relies on
the support of Dr. Paisley’s Free Presbyterian Church,
a Protestant congregation present throughout North-
ern Ireland that has often been strongly anti–Roman
Catholic.
POLICY
The main plank in the DUP program is militant and
adamant opposition to any moves toward integrating
Ulster into the Republic of Ireland or involving the
Republic, overtly or covertly, in the affairs of Northern
Ireland. According to Paisley, “If the Crown in Parlia-
ment decreed to put Ulster into a United Ireland, we
would be disloyal to Her Majesty if we did not resist
such a surrender to our enemies.” The party strategy
to avoid that capitulation is support for expeditious
devolution with power sharing with the moderate
nationalists of the SDLP but wants to exclude SF until
the IRA has fully decommissioned and disbanded.
The DUP supports welfare spending, especially when
Protestants are the beneficiaries. It recognizes that the
depressed Ulster economy needs government support
but blames the weak economy on the Catholics. (Pro-
portionately more Catholics are on welfare, but this is
because tradition has barred them from many areas of
employment.) Many DUP platform points are similarly
anti-Catholic.
MEMBERSHIP AND CONSTITUENCY
In 1979 the DUP had approximately 40,000 members.
By 1981 membership had increased to 44,000. In 2003
it was estimated that the DUP had over 55,000 mem-
bers. The DUP has been winning support because many
1436 World Encyclopedia of Political Systems and Parties
voters are losing faith with the UUP, believing that the
latter is too compromised with nationalists.
The DUP was originally the most homogeneous of
the four major parties and appealed primarily to rural-
based, traditional Protestants. Originally the DUP’s
bedrock of support was the congregation of the fun-
damentalist Free Presbyterian Church headed by Dr.
Paisley. Currently, the party has managed to retain the
fundamentalist Protestant element while also draw-
ing support among more secular working-class and
middle-class urban voters. The DUP’s electoral growth
can largely be attributed to Peter Robinson, the deputy
leader, who has worked very hard at strengthening the
party organization especially in urban constituencies
such as East Belfast. A 1993 survey gave it a composi-
tion of 70 percent working class and 30 percent middle
class. Also its supporters were 95 percent Protestants, 2
percent Catholic, and 3 percent other. More recently,
the DUP composition is approximately 60 percent
working class and 40 percent middle class.
FINANCING
No exact information is available. However, the gen-
eral mechanism for soliciting funds is similar to that
of the UUP, and member contributions are close to 100
percent of operating revenue.
LEADERSHIP
It leaders are Ian Paisley (born 1926), moderator of
the Martyr’s Memorial Free Presbyterian Church, MP
1970– , member, European Parliament 1979–2004,
NIA 1973–75, 1982–86, 1998– ; Peter David Robinson
(born 1948), deputy leader, former general secretary,
MP 1979– , member NIA 1982–86, 1998– ; and Nigel
Dodds, secretary, member NIA 1998– .
PROSPECTS
For more than three decades the DUP aimed to become
the leading unionist party by competing fiercely with
the UUP to gain the support of the majority of the
Protestant population. The DUP has frequently played
the “No Surrender” card and discouraged any form of
cooperation with nationalists and the Irish Republic. It
has also tried to outflank the UUP by embracing more
extreme anti-Catholic policies. This approach brought
further electoral success for the DUP when at the elec-
tions to the Northern Ireland Assembly in November
2003 it pulled ahead of the UUP.
The DUP refuses to speak directly to SF, but reviv-
ing the Good Friday agreement will require a deal
between the two biggest parties (SF and the DUP).
Ian Paisley has vowed to resist compromise, while
elements within the DUP, led by deputy leader Peter
Robinson, are believed to be more favorable to some
kind of compromise with nationalists and to get back
to devolution. This group represents a more secularized
and well-educated, middle-class faction of the DUP.
Paisley is old and will probably retire at some point,
opening up a leadership contest in the DUP. The party
is strong in Ulster, but has little influence over the Brit-
ish government. Paisley’s relationships with successive
British prime ministers have been dismal, and this
has contributed to the DUP’s lack of political clout.
Successive British governments have seen Paisley as a
local firebrand always ready to stoke the sectarian fires
rather than a party leader that could be dealt with.
Its electoral strength combined with its ability to
attract the vote of disgruntled UUP party members
makes the DUP the pivotal party in Northern Ireland.
Without DUP support Northern Ireland is unlikely to
see a return to devolved government. Recently the DUP
has made itself more appealing to UUP voters by adopt-
ing a more moderate stance. The party has also tried to
improve its relationship with the British government
by toning down its anti-Catholicism and by presenting,
in May 2004, its blueprint for moving the stalled peace
process forward. Its goal is to serve as the key broker of
the interests of Northern Protestants.
SINN FÉIN (SF)
HISTORY
The Sinn Féin (Gaelic for “we ourselves”) is the legal,
political arm of the Irish Republican Army (see below).
Until 1981 the IRA abstained from political, especially
electoral, action on the grounds that only military
force could “drive the British from Ireland” and that
participation in the politics or governments of Ireland
(north or south) was inconsistent with its position
that those governments were illegitimate. In April
1981 IRA militant Bobby Sands won a parliamentary
by-election while on a hunger strike in a British prison.
He died of starvation less than a month later, and his
election agent won the consequent by-election. Nine
other prisoners died before the strike was called off in
October.
Buoyed by their success in the by-elections, by
the wave of sympathy that the deaths evoked in some
parts of the Catholic community of Northern Ireland,
and, perhaps, by the realization that the hunger strike
had failed to achieve political objectives, young and
aggressive leaders of the Ulster wing of the IRA gained
control of the organization at its annual conference in
November and pushed through a basic policy change.
1438 World Encyclopedia of Political Systems and Parties
becoming the dominant nationalist party. Currently,
SF’s support is more diversified than in the past. It is
still supported by a majority of young people and work-
ers, but it also appeals to older middle-class voters. It
has also made considerable progress in the Republic of
Ireland, winning five seats to the Irish Parliament in
2003. The aim of the party is to grow the mass base in
both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
FINANCES
SF finances are shrouded by even more mystery than
its membership rolls. It appears to be the most afflu-
ent of the Ulster parties, despite its working-class
character. For instance, it outspent all the other par-
ties in the 1982 NIA elections, despite fielding fewer
than half as many candidates as some of them. Also,
its local organizations seem well funded, to the point
of staffing about a dozen “advice centers” within two
years of their founding. Probably, the SF relies much
less than its rivals on such traditional sources of party
funds as dues and donations. It does not have formal
trade union subsidies. On the other hand, its uncon-
ventional sources seem abundant. Its foreign affiliates
send money. Although SF has broken ties with one
of its historical major sources of funding, the Irish
Northern Aid Committee, which now backs the Con-
tinuity IRA, the party has forged new ties to wealthy
Irish-American organizations. In addition, as a result
of the IRA cease-fire, SF is now allowed by the U.S.
State Department to raise money in the United States
through corporate-sponsored functions and other
fund-raising events.
LEADERSHIP
Sinn Féin leaders include Gerry Adams (born 1948),
president 1983– , joint vice president 1978–83, mem-
ber NIA 1982–86, 1998– , MP 1983–92, 1997– , alleg-
edly IRA chief of staff 1976–78; Ruairi O’Bradaigh,
president 1969–83, “old guard” leader; Martin Mac-
Guinness, chief of staff 1978– , member NIA 1982–86,
1998– , MP 1997– , “young Turk”; Danny Morrison,
publicity director, member NIA 1982–86, “young
Turk”; and David O’Connell, joint vice president, for-
mer chief of staff, “old guard.”
PROSPECTS
The SF seems well established as a major force on the
Northern Ireland political scene. Its initial radicalism
was a source of ideological polarization, but in recent
years its efforts toward demilitarizing the conflict have
facilitated Anglo-Irish efforts to bring peace to the
province.
SF’s recent electoral successes, both in North-
ern Ireland, where it is now the leading nationalist
party, and in the Republic of Ireland, make a return
to violence by the IRA very unlikely. Its shift toward
constitutional politics is perhaps one of the key factors
making SF appealing to Northern Ireland voters. Its
ability to provide voters access to many social services
through the party’s advice centers and its mass mem-
bership base are two other key success factors for SF.
As the leading agent for the nationalist community,
SF provides an essential building bloc for the founda-
tion of a permanent solution to the “Northern Ireland
problem.”
SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC AND
LABOUR PARTY (SDLP)
HISTORY
The SDLP was founded in 1970 as a moderate Catho-
lic movement, absorbing most of the members and
supporters of the Nationalist, Republican Labour, and
National Democratic parties. The party was started
by seven members of the Northern Ireland govern-
ment: Gerald Fitt of the Republican Labour Party;
three independent MPs—John Hume, Ivan Cooper,
and Paddy O’Hanlon; a Nationalist MP; a Northern
Ireland Labour Party MP; and Paddy Wilson. Fitt was
leader, Hume deputy leader, and Paddy Fox chair of the
executive.
It shares with Sinn Féin the ultimate goal of unify-
ing Ireland but favors a more conciliatory and gradual
approach than does the SF. For three decades the SDLP
has been the principal representative of the Catholic
population. It has avoided major schisms, but there
have been numerous minor arguments and splits over
tactics. For example, the controversy over whether to
accept Britain’s 1979 call for a constitutional confer-
ence on Northern Ireland led to the resignation of
Gerald Fitt as party leader and his replacement by John
Hume. The change had no noticeable effect on the
party’s general direction, although Fitt quit the party
and held onto his Westminster seat.
The party’s popularity declined after 1977, espe-
cially after the SF began to take electoral politics seri-
ously in 1981. This was due largely to the increasing
polarization of the political scene. In the 1990s the
SDLP and specifically its leader John Hume sought to
develop an agreement with SF in an attempt to estab-
lish a common strategy for peace. The Hume-Adams
proposals were delivered to the two governments in
1993 and were extremely important in forming the

peace process agenda on which the Good Friday agree-
ment of April 1998 was based.
For his efforts to bring peace, John Hume received
the 1998 Martin Luther King Jr. Peace Prize and shared
the Nobel Peace Prize with David Trimble. In 2001
Hume retired as leader of the SDLP and was replaced
by Mark Durkan. The new leadership had to deal with
SF’s electoral resurgence. In 2003 the SDLP polled very
badly in the Northern Ireland Assembly elections, win-
ning only 17 percent of the vote and 18 seats, and lost
its leadership position as the main representative of
Northern Irish nationalism.
ORGANIZATION
The organizational basis of the SDLP is the local branch.
In the 1970s the SDLP had a vibrant party organization
that boasted more than 65 local branches. In the 1990s
the elected representatives took a more prominent role
within the party while the branch level organization
began to decay. It is estimated that as of the early 2000s
the SDLP has less than 20 party branches. The leader-
ship of the party now maintains that in order to reverse
electoral decline the SDLP needs to strengthen its branch
organization and increase the party membership.
In urban areas such as West Belfast the SDLP can-
vassing efforts pale in comparison to those of SF both
in terms of the number of available campaign workers
and advertising expenditures.
The Executive Committee is the supreme deci-
sion-making organ of the SDLP responsible for policy
development and for financial and organizational
matters. The committee is composed of the leader,
the deputy leader, the youth and women representa-
tives, six party officers, and 10 delegates elected at the
annual conference.
The SDLP belongs to the Socialist International and
the Confederation of Socialist Parties of the European
Union. It cooperates with the Irish Congress of Trade
Unions and belongs to the Council of Labour, an all-
Ireland association of labor parties and trade unions.
POLICY
The SDLP favors power sharing between Protestants
and Catholics and between Ulster and the Irish
Republic. Its stated goal is “reunification by consent”
and it calls its program “constitutional nationalism.”
This presupposes that the party will someday build a
strong base among the Protestant electorate, but the
party is divided on the issue of appealing to Protes-
tants. It is committed to socioeconomic reform, that
is, improving the lot of both Catholic and Protestant
workers. It supports constitutional reform strongly.
Northern Ireland 1439
Its primary political objective is to devise a power-
sharing coalition between nationalists and unionists
that governs in an equitable way and respects both
cultural traditions. The SDLP also calls for a strong
institutional link between Northern Ireland and the
Republic of Ireland to oversee the gradual political
integration of the island.
Since devolved government collapsed in 2002, the
SDLP has been the strongest advocate of the return to
devolution. It has made several proposals to the British
government in order to reinstate the power-sharing
coalition.
SF’s electoral progression has forced the SDLP to
adopt tough nationalist positions to defend its support
in the Catholic community. Thus, it has abandoned a
mere internal solution within the British framework
and has insisted that the active participation of the
Republic of Ireland in Ulster’s affairs is essential. The
SDLP has also been strongly opposed to political vio-
lence and has spoken very firmly against IRA violence.
MEMBERSHIP AND CONSTITUENCY
In 1976 the SDLP had 6,000 members, the smallest
membership of the major parties. More recent figures
are not available, but reliable estimates put the figure
at about the same. SDLP leaders blame this low figure
on the increased polarization of the political scene.
The SDLP supporters are predominantly middle
class (more than 55 percent), and Catholic intel-
lectuals are its most loyal supporters. The blue-collar
membership has tended to remain steady, but it is
the most likely group to bolt the party as polarization
intensifies.
The party has appealed for labor union support,
but since the unions are overwhelmingly Protestant
and Loyalist, these appeals fall on deaf ears. Its stron-
gest areas of support are Londonderry, South Down,
and Newry Armagh, all areas with large Catholic popu-
lations. Its supporters are 96 percent Catholic and only
4 percent Protestant.
FINANCING
The financial structure of the SDLP is very different
from that of the other main parties. Annual member-
ship fees for individuals are about $2.40. Because of
the small membership, this provides only a minus-
cule portion of operating expenses. The “troubles”
have dampened personal canvassing and necessitated
appeals for donations through expensive advertise-
ments in daily newspapers. The largest source of funds
comes from donations from a small group of execu-
tive and professional expatriate Ulstermen living in
1440 World Encyclopedia of Political Systems and Parties
Dublin. Other individuals in the Irish Republic also
contribute. Because so much of its money comes from
the Republic, the party is restricted in commenting on
matters in the Republic and arouses suspicion among
Protestants that it may only be a “front organization”
for Southern interests.
LEADERSHIP
SDLP leaders include Gerald Fitt (born 1926), found-
ing leader 1970–79, deputy chief minister, NI Execu-
tive 1974, MP Republican Labour 1966–70, SDLP
1970–79, Socialist 1979–83, Independent MP can-
didate 1983; John Hume (born 1937), deputy leader
1970–79, leader 1979–2001, MP 1983–2001, member
NIA 1969–72, 1982–86, and 1998–2003, European
Parliament 1979–2004; Seamus Mallon (born 1939),
deputy party leader 1979–2001, member NIA 1973–86
and 1998–2003, NIA deputy first minister 1998–2001,
MP 1986–2001; Mark Durkan (born 1960), party
leader 2001– , member NIA 1998– , NIA deputy first
minister 2001–2002; and Alasdair McDonnell, deputy
leader 2004– , member NIA 1998– .
PROSPECTS
The SDLP seeks radical change through moderate
means and can find support only within the Catholic
community. This was difficult enough before the SF
began to compete electorally. Now, the SDLP must also
show that its approach promises greater success than
the extremism of the SF. So far, it has fared well. How-
ever, the SDLP’s commitment to a peaceful nationalist
solution makes it heavily dependent on forces beyond
its control, especially the ability of the British and
Irish governments to work expeditiously toward an
accommodative resolution acceptable to most Ulster
Catholics. Ironically, the party’s leadership in the suc-
cessful effort to negotiate the Good Friday agreement
did not redound to its electoral benefit. However, it
remains one of the principal Catholic parties and,
thus, an essential element in every important political
move and solution.
ULSTER UNIONIST PARTY (UUP)
HISTORY
This party (ex-Official Unionist Party) dominated
Ulster from 1921 until the defection of Ian Paisley
and his DUP followers in 1970. Since then, the split in
the unionist forces has reduced it to being the largest
of four parties that are fairly similar in size. The party
originated in pre-partition times and was the stron-
gest element in the unionist movement. From 1921
until the introduction of direct rule from London, it
provided all the governments of Northern Ireland and
always held a majority of the 52 seats in the old NI
Parliament.
It usually held 10 of Ulster’s 12 seats in the British
House of Commons. From pre-“state” times until 1985
it was formally affiliated with the British Conservative
Party, entitled to send full voting representatives to
party conferences. It relied on the Conservative Party
to support Ulster’s link with Great Britain. Since 1985
the relationship between the UUP and the Conserva-
tives has been very strained. Unionists have always
expected to be consulted on Northern Ireland policy by
the British government in return for UUP support for
Conservative Party policies in the House of Commons.
When in 1985 the British government signed the
Anglo-Irish agreement without consulting the UUP,
James Molyneaux, the then UUP leader, withdrew his
party from the National Union of Conservative and
Unionist Associations. Relationships between the two
parties have not improved since. The WP remained
closely united until the rise of alternative forms of
unionism from 1970 to 1973 (e.g., Democratic Union-
ist Party, Alliance Party, Vanguard Movement). When
power was devolved to the Northern Ireland Assembly
in 1998, David Trimble, the UUP party leader, became
first minister of the Northern Ireland Executive. He
remained committed to the implementation of the
agreement despite strong internal dissent. Trimble’s
decision to take government responsibility prior to
complete decommissioning by the IRA gave rise to an
intense fight for control of UUP party policy between
pro- and anti-agreement unionists. Trimble managed
to survive as party leader until 2005, despite leading
the UUP to several electoral defeats. In January 2004
Jeffrey Donaldson, an UUP MP, and his followers
resigned from the UUP and joined the DUP. Currently,
for the first time in its history, the UUP is no longer
the primary representative of Ulster unionism, losing
the 2003 Northern Ireland Assembly elections to the
DUP.
ORGANIZATION
Traditionally, the UUP has been highly homogeneous
(Protestant pro-partition) with strict control exerted
by the party leadership. The leadership has always
placed very high importance on unity: anyone sus-
pected of opposition was expelled. During its 50 years
in office, it acquired influence over the more impor-
tant industries (shipbuilding and engineering), and
members suspected of disloyalty could lose their jobs as
well as their party affiliation.

The UUP is governed by the 900-member Ulster
Unionist Council, which meets at least annually and
includes representatives from 17 constituency associa-
tions; women’s, youth, student, and local councillor
organizations; and the Orange Order. The council
elects the leader and other officers (president, four vice
presidents, four honorary secretaries, and treasurer).
An executive committee, with representatives from the
same units, oversees management of the party between
councils. Its chairman and vice chairman are ex officio
members of the “officer group.” An annual conference
is open to all members of the party.
POLICY
Currently the UUP tends to have within its ranks two
main policy factions. Some within the party argue for
full integration of Northern Ireland with the United
Kingdom. This faction, which in the 1980s was repre-
sented by the British politician Enoch Powell, is now
a minority group within the UUP. Others, such as
former party leader David Trimble, support devolved
government and power sharing with nationalists. The
Trimble faction stands for three basic policies:
1. There cannot be any change to Northern Ireland’s
constitutional status without the consent of its
people.
2. A devolved government should be reestablished
with joint unionist and nationalist participation.
3. Former paramilitary groups should fully decom-
mission their weapons if they wish to participate in
devolved government.
In 1998 the UUP and the SDLP were the motors
that drove the negotiations to their successful con-
clusion and the formation of the Northern Ireland
Executive. This represents a reversal of its traditional
opposition to “power sharing” with the nationalists and
to any involvement of the Republic of Ireland in Ulster’s
affairs. It remains fiercely committed to the strict impo-
sition of law and order and to the decommissioning of
the militias on both sides. It is lukewarm toward the
European Union. It trumpets its commitments to main-
line Protestant principles and takes a moderate stand
on economic and social policies. As the people of Ulster
have become increasingly weary of the civil strife, the
UUP has overcome its longtime reluctance to participate
in the Anglo-Irish peace initiatives.
MEMBERSHIP AND CONSTITUENCY
According to the most recent available information,
the UUP has approximately 75,000 members. UUP
Northern Ireland 1441
officials claim to stand for the solid Protestant middle-
class artisans and shopkeepers and factory workers. The
party’s 1983 composition was 57 percent working class
to 43 percent middle class. Yet, the DUP is proportion-
ately more working class and the UUP is widely seen as
a vehicle for the interests of the Protestant upper class.
Its critics say that it has rallied the Protestant workers
in support of upper-class interests by using the party’s
power to improve their lot compared with that of the
Catholics. Its supporters are 98 percent Protestant and
2 percent Catholic.
The most loyal supporters are likely to be Prot-
estants who own sizable businesses and have direct
family ties to other sections of Great Britain. The party
has its greatest support in Protestant counties such
as Antrim and its least in such Catholic counties as
Fermanagh. Many blue-collar and some self-employed
members are “floaters”; that is, if they perceive the
UUP to be doing anything that might damage their
immediate economic interests, they switch to another
unionist group. Among organized interest groups, the
Orange Order has very close ties with the UUP. All but
three ministers in the last 50 years of NI governments
were Orange Order members.
This staunchly unionist organization has had
a very strong hold over the UUP. If a UUP member
started to moderate his position, he was expelled from
the Orange Order and thus rendered ineffective in the
party. Mainline Presbyterians and Free Masons are two
other major UUP constituencies. In recent years the
close relationship between the UUP and the Orange
Order has weakened a bit due to the latter’s uneasiness
about the Good Friday agreement. As a consequence,
the UUP has been losing electoral support. Some mem-
bers of the Orange Order now support the DUP, while
working-class voters are also flocking to the DUP and
other loyalist groups. The UUP has been able to retain
support from middle-class unionists in the more tradi-
tional and deferential Protestant rural constituencies,
but it has been unsuccessful in gaining upper-middle-
class support in Belfast and Londonderry. This group
has traditionally supported the moderate AP.
FINANCING
All members are expected to donate a fixed proportion
of their income to the party. Before the suspension of
provincial government, almost all employed people
were expected to donate to the party.
Contributions to the party have always amounted
to nearly 60 percent of operating revenue, with mem-
bership dues covering the remainder. Before 1972 it
1442 World Encyclopedia of Political Systems and Parties
was hard to discern where voluntary contributions
ended and unofficial government support began.
LEADERSHIP
The Unionist Party leadership is roughly in the 40-to-
60 age bracket (40-to-49, about 31 percent; 50-to-59,
about 29 percent). The party leadership comes from
the “squireocracy,” that is, traditional landowners or
wealthy industrialists. The party leader controls the
formulation of policy.
Recent former leaders include Captain Terence
O’Neill 1963–69; James Chichester-Clark 1969–71;
Arthur Brian Faulkner 1971–74; Henry William West
1974–79; James Henry Molyneaux 1979–95; and David
Trimble, 1995–2005.
Its present leaders are Sir Reg Empey, leader
2005– , member NIA 1998– ; Ken Maginnis, deputy
leader 1995–2001, member NIA 1998–2003, MP
1983–2001; Josias Cunningham, president.
PROSPECTS
The UUP is torn between the intransigence required
to keep a large part of its natural constituency from
defecting to the DUP and its need to respond positively
to the widespread desire in Britain and in sections of
the Protestant community for a conciliatory settlement
with Catholics and an end to communal violence.
The British government has relied upon the UUP to
represent the moderate voice of unionism as opposed
to the DUP’s refusal to settle with Catholics. In 1998
the UUP leadership had understood that too much
recalcitrance by Protestants against an agreement with
Catholics could drive British patience to the break-
ing point and had therefore assumed government
responsibility. This moderate shift in political strategy
damaged the UUP and undermined its support among
hard-line unionists. The UUP, whose current slogan
is “Simply British,” faces huge hurdles. It needs to
win back the support of disgruntled unionists. It also
needs to appeal to hard-line and moderate unionists by
showing that the DUP’s unwillingness to compromise
is damaging to the long-term prospects of the union
between Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom.
Minor Political Parties
PROGRESSIVE UNIONIST PARTY
(PUP)
A small loyalist party with links to the paramilitary
Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), the PUP was formed
in 1979 from the ashes of the Independent Unionist
Group. Hugh Smyth was one of its founding members.
The PUP was instrumental in getting the UVF to
call a cease-fire in 1994. It contested the elections to
the Northern Ireland Forum in 1996 and won two
seats. PUP representatives were involved in the nego-
tiations that led to the Good Friday agreement in April
1998 and subsequently supported the “Yes” campaign
in the referendum to endorse the agreement.
In the elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly
in 1998, the PUP won two seats and during the first
term of the Assembly between 1998 and 2003 the party
remained strongly committed to the agreement. It sup-
ported the power-sharing executive providing two key
votes to the beleaguered pro-agreement unionist camp.
Although the PUP strongly supports the union
between Ulster and Great Britain, it has also been
strongly critical of the DUP for its opposition to share
power with nationalists. The PUP appeals primarily
to working-class Protestants and favors left-of-center
policies. Its core support is found primarily in Belfast
and especially in the Protestant Shankill Road area.
In April 2002 David Ervine was chosen to replace
Hugh Smyth as leader of the PUP and led the party into
the November 2003 Northern Ireland Assembly elec-
tions, where it managed to win one seat and 1.2 per-
cent of the vote. The PUP is managed by a four-member
executive committee and has a membership of 1,500
primarily young, male, working-class activists.
UNITED KINGDOM UNIONIST
PARTY (UKUP)
The party was formed in 1995 by Robert McCartney,
a former member of the UUP, who won a by-election
in June 1995 to become a Member of Parliament for
the constituency of North Down. The main politi-
cal objective of the UKUP is to maintain the union
between Northern Ireland and Great Britain in addi-
tion to campaigning for Northern Ireland to become
more closely integrated with the rest of the United
Kingdom. The UKUP was opposed to the Good Friday
agreement of 1998 and actively campaigned for a “No”
vote in the referendum campaign. At the elections to
the Northern Ireland Assembly in June 1998 it won
five seats. Then in December 1998 disagreements over
future party strategy between the party leader, McCart-
ney, and his colleagues led to a split developing within
the ranks of the UKUP. As a result, four of the party’s
Assembly members left to form the Northern Ireland
Unionist Party (NIUP) accusing McCartney of being
too conciliatory with nationalists. In the Westminster

general elections of June 2001 McCartney failed to be
reelected as an MP but did succeed in being returned to
the Northern Ireland Assembly in November 2003.
OTHER MINOR PARTIES
The Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition was founded
in 1996 as a nonsectarian conciliatory movement to
mobilize Northern Irish women to support the peace
process. Its founders, Pearl Sagar and Monica McWil-
liams, were elected to the NI Forum and McWilliams
and Jane Morice to the NIA with 1.6 percent of the
vote. In the November 2003 Northern Ireland Assem-
bly elections the coalition polled very badly, losing its
two seats. It won 0.47 percent in 1997. Tiny Labour,
Green, and Conservative parties exist but almost never
win seats in elections across the province.
Other Political Forces
ORANGE ORDER
The Orange Order was founded in 1795 and is the larg-
est Protestant organization in Northern Ireland. When
the Unionist Party formed in 1886, the seven founders
were all Orangemen. Many members of the British
Conservative Party are also Orangemen, and this made
for strong ties between the Conservative Party and the
Unionist Party; there is a lodge in the British House of
Commons. The Order strongly opposes power sharing
and anything else they think may lessen Protestant
control of the state machinery. Although the Order
remains close to the UUP, the rise of the DUP in the
1970s forced it to adopt a neutral stance between the
parties. Some of the Order’s members are support-
ers of the DUP. The Order is primarily committed to
unionism, not to any particular party. The position of
the Orange Order was summed up by James Craig, a
former North Ireland prime minister, in 1932: “I am
an Orangeman first and prime minister and a mem-
ber of the Northern Ireland Parliament second.” The
Orange Order is one of the main organizers of a very
important, unique Ulster activity: political parades.
Various sectarian societies sponsor as many as 3,300
parades of their members a year, often marching
through hostile neighborhoods, to demonstrate their
political clout. Most parades sponsored by the Orange
Order are peaceful but a few parades through Catholic
areas (especially in Drumcree) have sparked intense
conflict in recent years. The Orange Order, determined
to march through Catholic areas, has engaged in vio-
lent conflict with the security forces, an indication of
Northern Ireland 1443
the deterioration of the relationships between Ulster
Protestants and the British state since the 1998 Good
Friday agreement. The Orange Order currently has
between 80,000 to 100,000 members and is led by the
Grand Master Robert Saulters. The majority of Orange
Order members have campaigned vigorously against
power sharing between unionists and nationalists. The
opposition of the Order to the Good Friday agreement
has had a very negative impact upon the relationship
between the Protestant lodge and the UUP. Both orga-
nizations were strongly intertwined for many decades
but in the last three years more and more Orange
Order members have abandoned the UUP in favor of
the DUP.
IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY (IRA)
The IRA has played an active role in opposing partition
since the 1920s. In 1970 it split into two sections over
the issue of how to achieve reunification. The Offi-
cial Irish Republican Army (OIRA) stresses reformist
policies with the ultimate goal of a Marxist state. It
works through neighborhood committees to improve
housing, schooling, and so on. The OIRA believes in
uniting Ireland but rejects violence as a means to that
end, working legally. After the split in 1970, most of
the IRA membership went with the Irish Republican
Army (IRA). The members of IRA are purists whose
only goal is the establishment of a united Ireland. They
have been responsible for most of the violence com-
mitted against the security forces. Discipline in the IRA
is strict. Kneecap smashing and assassination are the
ultimate sanctions.
Even while the IRA abstained from participation in
the political process before 1981, it had a great deal of
influence over that process. Catholic politicians who
appear overly moderate fear for their lives. In addition,
the IRA murders Protestants in retaliation for murders
of Catholics. It is difficult to gauge IRA support. It is
estimated that at the height of violence in the early
1970s the IRA reached a peak of 1,500 members and
it is believed that at the time of the 1994 cease-fire
membership was approximately 500.
The reduced membership was the result of pro-
found changes to the organization introduced in 1979
in order to develop a “cell structure” that was more
difficult to infiltrate by the security forces. In the
1990s the IRA relied on a tight group of volunteers as
opposed to a large and less controllable and disciplined
organization. Presently, it is believed that the IRA has
40 members. Since 1981 the IRA has sponsored the SF
as its legal, political arm (see above). IRA support was
1444 World Encyclopedia of Political Systems and Parties
critical to the success of the Good Friday agreement.
The IRA called a cease-fire on August 31, 1994, to
allow SF to join the peace negotiations. The cease-fire
was broken by the IRA in 1996 because the organization
believed that there had been a lack of political progress
in Northern Ireland. The IRA blamed the recalcitrant
Conservative Party government of John Major because
its very slim parliamentary majority made it dependent
on UUP votes in the House of Commons to approve
major legislation. When the Labour Party of Tony Blair
won an overwhelming majority in 1997, the IRA called
a second cease-fire. This enabled SF to join the negotia-
tions that led to the Good Friday agreement in 1998.
In 2001 the IRA made its first of three announcements
concerning the decommissioning of some of its weap-
onry. However, some of the more militant members
defected from the IRA and continued with sporadic
acts of violence such as the August 1998 bombing that
killed 28 civilians in Omagh. They adopted such names
as Real IRA and Continuity IRA. In July 2005 the IRA
finally announced a formal end to its use of violence
to achieve its political goals.
ULSTER DEFENSE ASSOCIATION
(UDA)
The UDA is the largest Protestant paramilitary organiza-
tion. Founded in 1971, it had approximately 30,000
members at its peak in 1972. By 1980 membership had
dropped to about 10,000. The UDA is an umbrella orga-
nization for the many local defense associations that
had been formed in Belfast and Londonderry to fight
the IRA. These defense associations are tightly con-
trolled, and local intragroup power struggles wasted
much of the groups’ energy. Membership in the UDA
is drawn largely from blue-collar workers in the 32-
to-39 age bracket. It created a political arm in the
New Ulster Political Research Group (NUPRG), which
advocates independence from Great Britain and the
establishment of a separate state in Northern Ireland.
The political group had a very small following and dis-
banded in 1981. Its current strength is probably under
1,000 members with a few dozen actives in the Ulster
Freedom Fighters (UFF), a cover name used by the
UDA. The UDA is a fairly decentralized organization
and decisions are made by the executive council, which
is composed of six commanders. The commanders have
far- reaching powers in their respective constituencies.
The UDA and the UFF called a cease-fire in October
1994 and, as a result, the UDP, its political representa-
tive, earned a place at the multiparty talks. In 2000 an
element with the UDA (Company C in West Belfast led
by Johnny Adair) engaged in a violent feud with other
loyalist groups and subsequently with other UDA lead-
ers. As a result, the British government proscribed the
UDA, accusing it of having breached the cease-fire.
The feud intensified between 2002 and 2003 and
led to killings and widespread violence. Johnny Adair
was sent to prison in 2003, and his family and associ-
ates were forced to flee to England under pressure from
other UDA units in Belfast. On February 22, 2003, the
UDA declared another cease-fire.
IRISH NATIONAL LIBERATION
ARMY
An extreme Republican paramilitary group that arose
after the split in the IRA, it combines the Marxist rhet-
oric of the OIRA with the terrorist tactics of the IRA.
Its most noted action was the assassination of Airey
Neave, the Conservative spokesman for Northern
Ireland in March 1979. Another noted action was the
1997 killing of Billy Wright, then leader of the Ulster
Volunteer Force, inside the Maze prison. Its political
wing is the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP),
which probably has no more than 500 members while
the INLA has no more than 200. The INLA called a
cease-fire on August 22, 1998, but has so far refused to
decommission its weapons.
POLICE FORCES
BRITISH ARMY
In 1994, before the cease-fire, the British had 19,000
troops in Northern Ireland, the most important ele-
ment in the province’s security system. With the
suspension of the Northern Ireland Parliament in
1972, London assumed direct responsibility for secu-
rity. Army headquarters is in Belfast, and the com-
manding general reports directly to London. The policy
of the army is to keep a low profile. The ultimate goal
of the British government is to remove the army, or
reduce the contingent to as low a number as possible,
and turn over primary peacekeeping responsibilities to
the police. The army coordinates its activities with the
police. In signing the Good Friday agreement, the Brit-
ish government committed itself to reduce its armed
forces in Northern Ireland as quickly as possible “to
levels compatible with a normal peaceful society.”
But six years after the signing of the Good Fri-
day agreement there were 15,000 military personnel
in Northern Ireland. Approximately around half the
number that served at the height of the “troubles” in
the 1970s, but still a very large amount for an unpre-

dictable security situation where the paramilitaries
have not fully decommissioned their weapons.
POLICE SERVICE OF NORTHERN IRELAND
The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) is the
new name given to the Royal Ulster Constabulary
(RUC), the local police force. The name change along
with attempts to improve relations with the nationalist
community are some of the major innovations intro-
duced as a result of the Patten Commission in 1999, a
body put in place by the British government to reform
the police.
The RUC was the name of the local police force
between 1922 and 2001. During that period the RUC
was almost entirely composed of officers drawn from
the Protestant community. Its main functions were to
deal with regular crime as well as with terrorist activi-
ties. The RUC, through its Special Branch, was respon-
sible for counterintelligence activities especially geared
toward thwarting the IRA.
The force has frequently been under intense criti-
cism from the nationalist community, which claimed
that the police force was less than objective in enforc-
ing the law. In some cases, there were alleged connec-
tions between Protestant paramilitaries and the RUC.
In 2001 the PSNI had approximately 8,500 full-time
officers and 4,500 part- time officers.
A key problem that still needs to be addressed by
the PSNI is the under- representation of Catholics in
its ranks, estimated at 8 percent. A more balanced
police force is one of the keys to resolving the North-
ern Ireland problem ensuring that the force is more
accepted in Catholic neighborhoods.
AUXILIARY POLICE
In 1921, at the height of the “troubles” between Irish
nationalists and the British, the Ulster Special Con-
stabulary (USC) was established to supplement the
regular police forces. The USC was entirely Protestant
and many of its members belonged to the Orange
Order. Of its three branches—A, B, and C—the “B
Specials” were regarded as particularly obnoxious by
Catholics; their mere appearance in Catholic neigh-
borhoods sparked many riots. The USC was disbanded
in 1970 and replaced with the Ulster Defense Regi-
ment (UDR), whose function was to assist the RUC
and the British army in controlling IRA terrorism. In
the 1980s and 1990s nationalists made allegations of
links between the UDR and loyalist paramilitaries. Fol-
lowing British government-sponsored investigations a
number of UDR soldiers were convicted of the murder
of Catholics and other crimes. The Stevens Inquiry
Northern Ireland 1445
revealed that there had been collusion between the
UDR and Loyalist paramilitary groups. As a result, the
UDR was disbanded and its members were transferred
in the Royal Irish Rangers in July 1992.
National Prospects
Northern Ireland faces a dilemma in that a majority
of its voters wish to remain part of Great Britain and
strongly resist incorporation into the Irish Republic.
Yet a hard core of this majority adamantly refuses to
concede equal political and economic rights to the
Catholic minority. A portion of that Catholic minority
is determined to fight as long as necessary to under-
mine the state and achieve a “united” Ireland. The
Anglo-Irish agreement, the Framework Document,
and the Good Friday agreement, signaling, as they did,
a greater resolve on the part of the British and Irish
governments to twist the arms of their recalcitrant
protagonists, began the process toward a peaceful reso-
lution of the conflict.
For four years (1999–2002), despite several hurdles,
nationalist and unionist politicians shared government
responsibility in the Northern Ireland Executive. They
introduced elements of normal governance such as
when the Executive announced its “2000 Agenda for
Government” in which the outlines of a legislative
program were laid out, or when in December 2000
the Northern Ireland Assembly approved a £6 billion
budget. These achievements have been unprecedented,
and the peace process has delivered changes almost
unimaginable in the early 1990s.
But despite the enormous progress achieved,
Northern Ireland still has to resolve many troubling
issues. On the unionist side there is a leadership deficit
that has continuously undermined stable government.
Both in 1974 and in 2002 the power-sharing coalition
government, the key to political stability, was brought
down because unionists lacked strong leaders and a
hegemonic party with the ability to carry voters forcing
them to accept compromise with nationalists.
On the nationalist side, SF has continued to make
inroads into the SDLP vote and is currently the main
representative of northern nationalism. Should the
SF ensure the complete decommissioning of the IRA,
which it announced in 2005, it would fully embrace
constitutional politics and provide a major boost to the
peace prospects.
Some sort of joint authority of Northern Ireland
between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ire-
land appears to be the most viable solution to end the
1446 World Encyclopedia of Political Systems and Parties
conflict and give parity of esteem to both communities.
The Good Friday agreement is the best assurance so far
that the conflict is on the way to a peaceful solution.
Despite the fact that the underlying sectarian suspi-
cions and fears are still strong in Northern Ireland,
for more than five years the main paramilitary groups
have ceased their violent activities. In addition, the
main political parties, under the auspices of the British
government, began in 2004 to talk to each other again
to try to resurrect the power-sharing coalition.
The fact that constitutional politics has displaced
violence and centrifugal politics is perhaps the most
important indication that Northern Ireland is on
its way toward resolving the centuries-old division
between Protestants and Catholics.
Further Reading
Adams, Gerry. An Irish Voice. Niwot, Colo.: Roberts Rinehart,
1997.
Alcock, Antony. Understanding Ulster. Lurgan, Northern Ire-
land: Ulster Society, 1994.
Arthur, Paul. Government and Politics of Northern Ireland.
New York: Longman, 1980.
Aughey, Arthur, and Duncan Morrow, eds. Northern Ireland
Politics. New York: Longman, 1996.
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