LECTURE THREE: UK CONSTITUTION
Institutions (1) The UK state and central government: part one history, dynamics and principles
Programmed Reading - John Kingdom: Government and Politics in Britain
Ch 03+12+14
Evolution of the UK state – the entire history is revealed in a careful study of the title of the juristiction.
UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND
KINGDOM = Constitutional monarchy (not a US/French style modern contract/legalistic state. Evolution from absolute monarchy (Tudor tyranny – Hobbes, etc).
17th century – the (first) English revolution – regicide – Cromwell’s military dictatorship (The Ironsides). Conquest/Holocaust in (Catholic/Royalist/French) Ireland vs (Protestant/Parliamentary/Dutch) England.
The restoration and suspicions of Papist Plots (Guy Forks) and a Stuart dynasty Catholic Restoration.
1688 – The Glorious Revolution – parliament gave the throne to Protestant monarch King William of Orange (Dutch). Peaceful coup – except in Ireland – Battle of the Boyne Catholic King James against “King Billie”. Remains unsolved problem of the UK constitution – problem of Ireland and of the protestant minority in the north unwilling to live as a minority in a Catholic country. Centuries of conflict and lately terrorism and counter-terrorism.
The Act of Settlement – Monarch can not rule without consent of parliament. Monarch must be a protestant Christian. Remarkable constitutional stability in the UK since 1688 (except Ireland of course).
“UNITED KINGDOM”
The state is a union of former independent kingdoms – England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland.
Wales conquered by the Norman kings of England in 12th – 13th centuries – Crusader Castles. Wales subjugated as a principality and a feudal fiefdom of the kings of English (generally French until the Tudors). High degree of integration of the English and Welsh state – legal system identical, unlike Scotland where there are some national differences.
In terms of the monarchy Wales has no status as part of a united kingdom, it is a subject territory of the kingdom of England.
Basically the English crusader knights slaughtered the Welsh nobility and enslaved the peasants them as feudal vassals.
SCOTLAND – the Act of Union 1707 (The Union of the Parliaments) The abolition of the Scottish Parliament (“Bought and sold for English Gold – such a parcel of rouges in a nation” – Robert Burns – MPs in the Scottish parliament were bribed to vote for their own dissolution). This is the age of Adam Smith, Hume and the Scottish Enlightenment. Scottish industry ruined by free trade with England, and Scotland impoverished for 300 years, but now got parliament back (Scottish Nationalist Party now in power in Scotland).
This created the Kingdom of Great Britain (ie the largest island in the British Isle – a geographical term)
Robert Burns:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7ncizeO2jk
UNION FLAG 1707 (flag of the Kingdom of Great Britain)
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IRELAND
Act of Union 1800 – Irish Parliament abolished itself and subjected itself to the English (or Great Britain) parliament in Westminster. The Irish were then represented in Westminster.
The English had repeatedly tried to conquer the Irish – and established a colony in Dublin – The Pale of Settlement in Norman times. A sustained attempt at conquest and ethnic cleansing in Tudor times – The Irish Plantation (Ulster Protestantism). Irish land taken from regional tribal chieftains – clan system – clan names like O’Neal. Steadily grabbed tribal land and gave to English Lords and Barons. System of Plantation later used for model of slavery in America and Carribean. In fact the first slaves in the new world were defeated Irish clan warriors. The model was feudal and similar to previously achieved assimilation of Wales.
In the civil war Ireland suffered attempted genocide – vengence by Cromwell and parliament against the raising of Irish armies by the pro-Catholic and Monarchist Ango-Irish land owners.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yutj4Zv67Kk - RTE documentary on Cromwell.
UNION FLAG 1800 (flag of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland)
Because of memory of Cromwell – ‘The Butcher’s Apron’.
Ireland destroyed economically – becomes most backward place in Europe for 200 years – famine, monoagriculture, emigration, poverty…
Boston
Liverpool
Manchester
Glasgow
Australia
Canada
JONATHAN SWIFT – A MODEST PROPOSAL (Blog on that – link back to the Empiricists – a brilliant satire)
The great famine of 1840s
Thereafter – The British Empire (2nd Empire – India, Africa – this was NOT a settler empire like the first empire – America, Australia, Cape Colony)
1916 – Irish Nationalist uprising against British rule. Civil war – IRA vs Black and Tans.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKROfWOCTdY&feature=related
1922 – Irish Free State (United Ireland as an independent dominion something like Canada – with the English Monarch, but its own parliament restored. Title was The Irish Free State).
BUT after a threatened military coup in 1921/22 Northern Ireland was re-incorporated into the United Kingdom – hence the current title THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND (NORTHERN) IRELAND – the brackets are mine to make the point.
IRELAND – The 1922 treaty sparks a civil war between a wing of the IRA which accepted the treaty (The Free Staters) and accepted British rule in Northern Ireland (they disarmed and became the police, soliders of the new Irish state) and the ‘Official IRA’ – Sinn Fein who did not accept the treaty. IRA by the 1960s was no longer fighting in the south and had adopted peaceful means in the north (Civil Rights Movement), After 1968 pogrom against Catholics, a faction of the Official IRA took up arms to dedend as they saw it the Catholic population. The British Army was sent (also to protect the Catholics – it was all a bit like the position of the blacks in the southern states of the USA with the Orange Order being something like the KKK or the BroderBund). Official IRA happy to work with the British Army. Provisional IRA attack the British Army – terrorist campaign rank on and off for next 40 years. Stalemate leads to IRA entering peaceful politics as Sinn Fein and willing to rule in coalition with the unionists (Orange and other) with the long term aim of negotiating a united Ireland by peaceful means. But not entirely trusted of course…
Ireland is then only serious threat to the stability of English/British state. It is the proud boast of Irish nationalists that the destruction of the British Empire began in Ireland – the first colony.