The government of Westminster in London is a parliamentary democracy that has

traditionally held in place a political system referred to as the Westminster Model (WM). The
WM sets forth six key aspects of how British legislature is modeled and operated. The aspects
of this model most accurately represent how British politics were run in the 1950s and 60s,
which were much different political eras than the Conservative and Liberal Democrat
government today. The six main aspect of the WM explain British political structure in terms of
constitution, government institutions, parliamentary sovereignty, electoral system, parties, and
unitary system (Oxley). Contemporary British politics have begun to veer away from certain
aspects of this model due to the existence of a coalition government in Westminster, decline in
political and party interest, and the result of devolution of power out to other UK institutions.
Unlike countries that had revolutions or major political restructuring like the United States
or Germany, Great Britain has no formal constitutional document. Instead, there are written laws
which have been passed by government but can be changed or eliminated by future
governments. Many new policies have been introduced, some old laws have been edited, and
even some have withstood decades of British politics untouched. In terms of no existing formal,
traditional, written constitution, the WM can still be applied to contemporary British politics
(Oxley, Wright).
Government Institutions are unique in the UK. There are different assemblies for
domestic, local, and international policies, and a Monarch is still in existence. The Westminster
Model solely includes the Parliament in Westminster and the Crown as branches of legislature.
Parliament in Westminster is composed of the House of Lords and the House of Commons.
This parliament is unique because there is a fusion of branches between the legislative,
executive, and judicial branches of government- with no separation of powers (Wright). The
legislative consists of the Lords and Commons, the central Executive is the ministries, and the
Prime Minister theoretically sits in the fusion between these two, along with his cabinet. The
Crown, almost unimportantly, sits between the fusion of each of the three branches of

government. This government institution and its importance is still present today, with a few
power constraints due to new government assemblies and the present state of the majority
government. In the current British political system there was a hung parliament with no outright
majority, so Conservatives joined in a coalition ruling government with the Liberal Democrats, in
which implications of this agreement will be discussed in later sections (Oxley). Recently, the
House of Lords has become more independent, but also restricted on aspects of membership.
Over one hundred life peers were also added to the House of Lords in attempts to balance out
government (Yong 2).
The Westminster Model system contains little to none judicial review. Due to
parliamentary sovereignty, no single body can overturn a decision by parliament- not the Queen,
Supreme Court, or shadow government. It is possible to overturn a policy only by a new law
from Parliament. Since 2009 a Supreme Court body has been set up, which has very limited
power over parliamentary decisions, if any at all (Oxley). Thus, parliamentary sovereignty is, in
practice, executive sovereignty, because of the fusion of executive and legislature, and singleparty majority rule (Yong 2, 92). In the current British government in Westminster, there is much
less executive sovereignty than there is traditionally, mainly due to the coalition between the
Tories and Liberal Democrats that was born from Conservatives not holding a majority in
Commons. This is the first peace-time coalition government (Cowley). Conservatives do hold a
majority of seats in the cabinet, while five are held by Liberal Democrats (Oxley). The coalition
has weakened the powerful, unchecked centre that Tories are used to benefitting from while in
power (Wright). Lib dems now have some authority to keep both Labour and Conservative
parties in line (Driver). Thus, it is more difficult for this governing party to pass legislation
through parliament because support from two sets of backbenchers is needed (Yong 2).
Although, there is more cooperation and compromising than in the traditional model, since being
a coalition results in giving up some governmental independence and making agreements on
important party policies.

The electoral system in the UK has not changed from the tradition WM model. The first
past the post electoral system elects party members to represent certain districts in the UK. In
this system, whoever receives the most votes becomes elected, which eliminates the option of
proportional representation when electing government officials, tending to privilege larger
parties.
Lib dems want to change the electoral system, since it generally favors major parties the most,
but this policy has not yet been followed through with (Driver). It is also now a new policy for
general elections to occur every five years, but there is no limit on consecutive terms (Oxley).
One of the most significant shifts of contemporary British politics from the WM model is
that away from a two-party system. Wright states that it is no longer possible to describe
something called the party system in Britain, as there is now a variety of party systems (Wright
77), as 2010 noted the end of the two-party system of politics (Driver). Traditionally there have
been two major British political parties, with a single-party government, along with a few minor
parties. Either Labour or Conservatives have governed Britain from 1945 to 2010; yet in 2010
Conservatives teamed up with a minor party to form a coalition government (Wright). The state
of the current government may make some believe this is a two-and-a-half party system, and
also sets a recent milestone of a minor party holding seats in the cabinet. Parties themselves
and the overall party system is becoming much weaker (Wright). This is supported by the
statistics that in 1970, 89% of the general election votes were shared by the two major parties,
while this percentage has been declining ever since, with only 65% in 2010 (Wright). Not only
that, but strong voter identification to a political party has significantly dropped from 45% in the
1960s to 11% in the 2000s (Wright). Decline of the two-party system could be due to class no
longer being the basis of British party politics (Wright 74). Needless to say, entering a coalition
government in which no-one voted for, and with broken pre-election promises, did not help
party membership either (Yong 2). What also has become more common is MP, especially backbench, rebellion, mostly due to coalition policy disagreements (Yong).

The final aspect of the model is that a unitary system in the UK explains that full power
comes from the centralized, national government of Westminster, and that individual county
governments have little power. In the tradition Westminster model, parliament in Westminster
would set laws and regulations for policies such as taxes, health care, etc., which would be
designated not only for England but for each country of the United Kingdom. This is the aspect
of the WM model that has changed the most in contemporary British politics. Devolution of
power out to new assemblies and parliaments of Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and the
European Union has taken power out of the unitary system and away from Westminster.
Westminster decides on important domestic policies, while devolved institutions are able to
decide on more local policies (Oxley). Because of this change, the problem is that the electoral
cycle in the UK no longer allows parties four or five years slowly to rebuild; British party politics
is now a year- on- year set of different electoral contests (Cowley 110). Multi-level power has
thus forced Britain to give up some independent sovereignty.
Cowley points out that the hung parliament produced in 2010 was not some fluke, but
the result of long- term trends in British politics [which] merely brought Westminster in line
with what is happening in other parts of the UK (Cowley 111). Some may blame devolution of
power for the resulting coalition government in Westminster, thus British politics strayed farther
from the traditional Westminster Model. Although many aspects of the WM model have changed
drastically, few major points can still be applied to contemporary British politics.

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