UK POLITICS

THREE ARMS OF THE STATE

The British political system is headed by a monarchy but essentially the powers of the monarch as head of state are ceremonial. 

The Royal Family does have some subtle and hidden influence on the legislative process as they have to be consulted about legislation that might affect their private interests. 

In classical political theory, there are three arms of the state:

1. The executive - the Ministers who run the country and propose new laws
2. The legislature - the elected body that passes new laws
3. The judiciary - the judges and the courts who ensure that everyone obeys the laws

THE U.K. PARLIAMENT

The British Parliament is bicameral, that is there are two houses or chambers. 

The House of Commons

This is the lower chamber but the one with the most authority. 

The House of Commons sits each week day for about half of the weeks of the year. 

The Commons is chaired by the Speaker. Unlike the Speaker in the US House of Representatives, the post is non-political.

The House of Commons currently comprises 650 Members of Parliament or MPs (the number varies slightly from time to time to reflect population change). 

The Members vote (votes are called 'divisions') by physically walking through one of the two lobbies which run along the side of the Commons chamber. These lobbies are the 'aye' lobby and the 'nay' lobby. The votes are counted by 'tellers' who then return to the chamber to announce the numbers to the Speaker.

Every citizen aged 18 or over can vote once in the constituency in which they live. Voting is not compulsory. UK uses a method of election called the simple majority system or 'first past the post' (FPTP). In this system, the country is divided into a number of constituencies each with a single member and the party that wins the largest number of votes in each constituency wins that constituency regardless of the proportion of the vote secured. 

Until now, in the UK there has not been fixed term parliaments. A General Election - that is, a nationwide election for all 650 seats - was held when the Prime Minister called it, but the election could not be more than five years after the last one and it was usually around four years after the last one. The Coalition Government has passed legislation to provide for fixed five-year parliaments.

The House of Lords

This is the upper chamber but the one with less authority. Its main roles are to revise legislation and keep a check on Government by scrutinising its activities.

There is no fixed number of members in the House of Lords. 

Almost all the other members of today's House of Lords are life peers. This means that they have been chosen by the Queen, on the advice of the Government, to sit in the House for as long as they live, but afterwards no member of their family has the right to sit in the House. 

A small number of other members are archbishops and bishops of the Church of England.

THE LEGISLATIVE PROCESS

In the British political system, almost all legislation is proposed by the Government and much of it comes from promises made in the manifesto of the relevant political party at the last election. 

All legislation has to be approved by both Houses of Parliament.

In each House of Parliament, a proposed piece of legislation - called a Bill - goes through the following stages:

• First Reading - the Bill is introduced with simply a reading by a Minister of the long title of the Bill
• Second Reading - the general principles of the Bill are debated by all the members of the House and a formal vote is taken
• Committee Stage - each clause and schedule of the Bill, plus amendments to them and any new clauses or schedules, is examined in detail, in the Commons by a small, specially chosen group of members meeting as Public Bill Committee or in the Lords by the members as a whole on the floor of the House
• Report Stage - the changes made to the Bill in the Committee are reported to and debated by the whole House which is invited to consider the Bill as a whole, approve the changes by the Committee, and consider any further proposed changes that might be suggested
• Third Reading - the final version of the Bill is considered by the whole House in a short debate 
• Royal Assent - the Crown gives assent to the Bill which then becomes an Act, the provisions becoming law either immediately or at a date specified in the Act or at a date specified by what is called a Commencement Order

POLITICAL PARTIES

The idea of political parties first took form in Britain and the Conservative Party claims to be the oldest political party in the world. Political parties began to form during the English civil wars of the 1640s and 1650s. First, there were Royalists and Parliamentarians; then Tories and Whigs. Whereas the Whigs wanted to curtail the power of the monarch, the Tories - today the Conservatives - were seen as the patriotic party.

Today there are three major political parties in the British parliamentary system:

• The Labour Party - the centre-Left party 
• The Conservative Party (the Tories) - the centre-Right party 
• The Liberal Democrat Party (the Lib Dems) - the centrist, libertarian party 

In recent years, Britain has seen the rise of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) led by Nigel Farage, which was formed in 1993. 

In addition to these four main parties, there are some much smaller UK parties (notably the Green Party) and some parties which operate specifically in Scotland (the Scottish National Party), Wales (Plaid Cymru) or Northern Ireland (such as Sinn Fein for the nationalists and the Democratic Unionist Party for the loyalists).

Each political party chooses its leader in a different way, bug by convention, the leader of the political party with the largest number of members in the House of Commons becomes the Prime Minster (formally at the invitation of the Queen).

THE U.K. GOVERNMENT

All Government Ministers have to be a member of either the House of Commons or the House of Lords and every Government Department will have at least one Minister in the Lords, so that the Department can speak in either House as necessary. 

The Prime Minister

In practice, the most important person in the British political system is the Prime Minister.  In theory, the Prime Minister simply choses the ministers who run Government departments and chairs the Cabinet, however, the Prime Minister is a very powerful figure and increasingly has been behaving much like a president in other political systems.

Government Departments

The most important political departments are called:

• The Treasury - In most countries, this would be called the Ministry of Finance. It is responsible for the raising of all taxes and the control of all government expenditure plus the general management of the economy.
  
• The Home Office - In most countries, this would be called the Ministry of the Interior. It is responsible for criminal matters, policing, and immigration.
  
• The Foreign and Commonwealth Office - In most countries, this would be called the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It is responsible for all international relationships, especially membership of the European Union.

Many other UK Government Departments are similar to those in other countries and cover subjects such as education, health, transport, industry, and justice. However, there are also small departments for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Government Ministers

All Government Departments are run by Ministers who are either Members of the House of Commons or Members of the House of Lords. There are three classes of Minister:

• Secretary of State - This is usually the head of a Department.
• Minister of State - This is a middle-ranking minister.
• Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State - This is the most junior class of minister.

The Prime Minster and all the Secretaries of State together comprise an executive body of government called the Cabinet. Cabinet meetings are confidential and all members are bound by any decision that it takes in a practice called collective responsibility. 

DEVOLVED GOVERNMENT

The UK has a devolved system of government

The three devolved administrations are:

The Scottish Parliament

This came into operation in May 1999. All members are elected for four-year terms.

The Scottish Parliament meets in Holyrood, Edinburgh. It has legislative powers over those matters not reserved to the UK Parliament and it has limited tax-raising powers.

The Welsh Assembly

This came into operation in May 1999.It has 60 members elected by a system of proportional representation known as the mixed member system. All members are elected for four-year terms.

It meets in the Senedd, Cardiff. When first created, the Assembly had no powers to initiate primary legislation. However, since 2006, the Assembly has powers to legislate in some areas, though still subject to the veto of the Westminster Parliament. The Assembly has no tax-varying powers. The Welsh Assembly, therefore, has less power than either the Scottish Parliament or the Northern Ireland Assembly because Wales does not have a separate legal system from England.

The Northern Ireland Assembly

The present version of the Assembly came into operation in May 2007. It has 108 members - six from each of the 18 Westminster constituencies - elected by a system of proportional representation known as the single transferable vote (STV).

It meets in the Parliament Building, Belfast. It has legislative powers over those matters not reserved to the UK Parliament, but it has no tax-raising powers. The First Minister and Deputy First Minister head the Executive Committee of Ministers and, acting jointly, determine the total number of Ministers in the Executive.

Islamic State's position on Christians

The recent abduction of dozens of Assyrian Christians and the mass beheading of Egyptian Copts at the hands of the Islamic State (IS) militant group raises questions about its stance on Christians, both in the Middle East and worldwide.

While there is a general agreement between Islamic scholars that Christians and Jews have a special status under an Islamic state which guarantees them safety in exchange for paying a special tax and other conditions, IS has recently shown that this status would be an exception rather than the rule.

When the group announced the beheading, it stated that it had acted in revenge for the apparent mistreatment of Coptic women converts to Islam by the Egyptian Coptic Church.

However, they have also mentioned that they have been targeting Christians because they were part of the "nation of the Cross".

This suggests that all Christians are a legitimate targets for IS. However, the the group is apparently willing to tolerate Christian minorities in areas under its control.

IS has already signalled its hostility towards the Assyrian Christian prisoners by describing them as "Crusaders".

Unlike other religious minorities - such as the Yazidis - Christians and Jews are generally considered to have protected ("Dhimmi") status because they belong to monotheistic religions like Islam. Nevertheless IS appears to view Christians primarily as enemies that must be fought and subdued.

However, Christians have not always been seen as enemies by the group.

Few years ago, Christian minorities in areas of Iraq used to have some sort of a protection. A statement issued by the group's Mosul branch in 2008 referred to a pact concluded with Christian community leaders and IS.

In 2014, IS offered similar protection to Christians in Syria and other areas under the group's control in both Syria and Iraq. IS gave them few options: 

1.To convert to Islam2. To remain Christian but pay taxes and conform to strict Islamic rules
3. To reject the first two options and face war from the group.

In the latest edition of its English-language,IS listed Christians amog its main enemies.It said IS advocated jihad against "the Jews, the Christians, the Rafida [Shia] and the proponents of democracy".

Who are the Yazidis?

Among the many victims of the advance of The Islamic State (IS) in the Middle East are a group of up to 50,000 Yazidis, who are trapped in the mountains in northwest Iraq without food or water.

On account of their unusual beliefs, they are often unjustly referred to as "devil worshippers", and have traditionally held themselves apart in small communities mainly scattered across northwest Iraq, northwest Syria and southeast Turkey. Estimating their current numbers is difficult, with figures ranging from 70,000 to 500,000. Like in many other minority religions, it is impossible to convert to it, but a person rather has to be born into it. 

Their name is derived from the Persian word "ized', which stands for angel and is how Yazidis describe themselves.

They respect both the Bible and the Koran, but much of their own tradition is oral. Recent research has shown that they share many elements with Christianity and Islam.

Children are baptised with consecrated water by a pir (priest). At weddings he breaks bread and gives one half to the bride and the other to the groom. The bride, dressed in red, visits Christian churches. In December, Yazidis fast for three days, before drinking wine with the pir. They practise sacrifice of animals and circumcision.

Their supreme being is known as Yasdan. However, he is considered to be on such a high level that he cannot be worshipped directly. He is the Creator of the world and Seven great spirits emanate from him of which the greatest is the Peacock Angel. The peacock in early Christianity was a symbol of immortality, because its flesh does not appear to decay. Yazidis pray to the Peacock Angel five times a day. His other name is Shaytan, which is Arabic for devil, and this has led to the Yazidis being mislabelled as "devil-worshippers". 

If they are driven from Iraq and Syria by IS extremists, the likelihood is that more will settle in southeast Turkey where they are left to live out their beliefs in peace.

Islamic State: Militants 'kill 300 Yazidi captives'

Several hundred Yazidi captives have been killed in Iraq by Islamic State militants 

Yazidi's religion includes elements of several faiths, which is why IS considers them as infidels. 

A statement from the Yazidi Progress Party said 300 captives were killed on Friday in the Tal Afar district near the city and the Iraqi Vice-President Osama al-Nujaifi described the reported deaths as "horrific and barbaric".

Alan Johnston, BBC WS Middle East Editor, stated that it is not clear how or why were Yazidi killed.

Hundreds of men were killed, while some Yazidi women were held and used as sex slaves.

In January, IS released some 200 mainly elderly Yazidis into the hands of Kurdish officials near the city of Kirkuk.

In December, Kurdish Peshmerga forces drove back IS militants in north-western Iraq, relieving a long siege of Sinjar mountain where thousands of Yazidis had sought refuge.

The Iraqi government, with forces backed by Iran, also declared it had taken back control of the city of Tikrit in April.

Lybian tv crew found dead

Five journalists belonging to a Libyan TV crew have been found dead, eight months after they were kidnapped.

A government spokesman said the bodies were found near the city of Al Bayda, close to the site of the kidnapping.

The crew was taken in August while travelling through territory largely controlled by extremist militants.Faraj al-Barassi, a district army commander in eastern Libya, told Reuters that militants loyal to Islamic State (IS) were responsible for the killings.

EU won't send armed force to Ukraine despite clashes

EU leaders have told Ukraine they are worried about ceasefire violations in the east of the country but will not send armed peacekeepers there.

"We can only talk about a civilian mission, not military," European Council President Donald Tusk told a news conference in Kiev.The West accuses Russia of arming the rebels and sending in regular soldiers. Moscow denies that, insisting that any Russians on the rebel side are volunteers.

Mr Tusk said: "We are concerned about reports of weapons still entering eastern Ukraine".Under the Minsk ceasefire deal signed in February both sides were supposed to pull heavy weapons back from the conflict zone.

Ukrainians' living conditions are very difficult and they pledged more EU financial assistance to help in the hard reform process. 

Jim Wells resigns as Northern Ireland health minister over 'anti-gay' remarks

Jim Wells, Democratic Unionists' health minister, stepped down on Monday from his post after the police received a complaint about comments he has made to a gay couple. 

This could become one of the major problems that Ed Miliband or David Cameron might face if they chose to form a minority government backed by DUP votes in the House of Commons.

Wells has also caused an outrage after stating that child abuse was more rife among gay couples. “You don’t bring a child up in a homosexual relationship. That a child is far more likely to be abused and neglected". 

However, Peter Robinson, the party leader and Northern Ireland's first minister, stated he would have backed Wells up to stay in the post. 

“I know Jim was enjoying leading change within the department and putting in place new policies that were making our health service better" Peter Robinson said. 

Wells’ resignation and this latest homophobia row surrounding the DUP exposes the struggle within the party between its born-again Christian fundamentalist wing and modernisers, who want to reach out to a wider electoral base in favour of the union.