The New British Politics

Ian Budge, David Mckay, Kenneth Newton, John Bartle

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781317865964
• Edition: 4
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The New British Politics is one of the most comprehensive and successful introductions to British politics ever published. Now available in a fully revised and updated fourth edition, this clear, lively and authoritative text has an emphasis on law and order and the historical context of British politics. Written by internationally-known specialists, the book combines incisive and original analysis with direct presentation.

Part 1

History

chapter 2

The first industrial country: ideas and institutions, 1688–1931

From the seventeenth through to the early twentieth centuries Britain experienced two crucial and – in comparison with other countries – unique developments. First, the country made a long and peaceful transition from autocratic monarchy to modern democracy. No other comparable state made this transition entirely through peaceful means. Instead, such countries as Germany, France, Italy and even the United States experienced revolutions, civil war or wars of independence in their evolution to democracy. Second, Britain was the first country to industrialise and make the transition from a predominantly rural society to an overwhelmingly urban one. At the same time, Britain acquired the world’s largest colonial empire, which was at once a source of raw materials and cheap agricultural produce and a market for British manufactured goods and financial services. These developments required new political, economic and social institutions, many of which – Parliament, the Civil Service, local government, courts and police, the City of London, the armed forces – are still with us. Externally, Britain got locked into a pattern of relationships with the rest of the world that also persists, although both Britain and the world have changed greatly in the meantime.

How adaptable these institutions have been in the face of dramatic changes to British society and to Britain’s role in the world was a question raised in Chapter 1, and will be a theme throughout the book. However, we cannot provide a clear answer until we have looked in detail at how British politics and institutions function in practice. To understand them fully we also need to look at the critical formative period in which they emerged and see what influences shaped them. We do this here, before going on to developments post-1930 in Chapter 3.

This chapter looks at the ways in which industrialisation and urbanisation changed both political institutions and the main ideas that shape politics. Discussion will cover these historical periods and episodes:

■ the triumph of parliamentary over royal power, 1688–1830

■ urbanisation and the rise of mass democracy, 1830–1928

■ the British world system, 1850–90

■ institutional change and reform, 1840–1900

■ free markets, protection and industry, 1890–1931

■ defences against an unstable international environment, 1890–1931

■ the rise of socialism and trade union power, 1890–1931.

The triumph of parliamentary over royal power, 1688–1830

A crucial date in English (and hence British) history is 1688, because it marks one of the few occasions when English political institutions made a clean break with the past. Until 1688 royal power was enshrined in the doctrine of the divine right of kings (that monarchs were chosen by God to rule their subjects). In England, James II was openly Catholic and contemptuous of Parliament. The most influential grouping in Parliament, the Whigs, were Protestant and determined to assert parliamentary power over the monarch. James II’s insensitivity also offended the other main grouping, the Tories, and in 1688 their leaders invited the Protestant William of Orange and his wife Mary, Protestant daughter of James, to take the English throne. Although James at first resisted, he eventually fled to France and William and Mary acceded to the throne.

A new constitutional settlement, known as the Glorious Revolution, established the necessity of consulting Parliament, especially on matters of taxation. A Bill of Rights was published – not so much a guarantee of citizen rights in the modern sense, as it was a guarantee of the rights of Parliament. These included free elections, free speech in Parliament and the abolition of the monarch’s power to dispense and suspend laws. Further refinements were added through the Act of Settlement in 1701 and through the Act of Union with Scotland in 1707 (see Chapter 11).

During the eighteenth century, prime ministers assumed the role of chief executive in the British system. Even so, important residual powers remained with the monarch, including the formal power of dissolving Parliament and appointing a new government. These residual powers continued through the nineteenth century and indeed remain in a much-attenuated form to this day (see Chapter 4).

In spite of free speech in Parliament and free elections, eighteenth-century Britain was hardly democratic. Parliamentary seats could be secured from large landowners or by bribing a few electors. The right to vote was confined to a few men of property. And, of course, the landed aristocracy retained an important role in government through their membership of the upper House of Parliament, the House of Lords. Even so, British elites considered their system free in comparison to the absolutism that characterised most major continental powers. Towards the end of the eighteenth century two foreign events had a profound impact. First, the American War of Independence and the subsequent establishment of democracy in the United States showed up the weaknesses and inadequacies of British politics as practised in the late eighteenth century. Second, the French Revolution showed what could happen to states that denied rights and freedoms to their citizenry – anarchy and rule by the mob. The French Revolution thus provided a salutary lesson on what could happen in states that failed to make a peaceful transition to full democracy.

Urbanisation and the rise of mass democracy, 1830–1928

The ascendancy of parliamentary over royal power was accompanied by dramatic economic developments. First agriculture and then manufacturing experienced rapid technological changes, greatly increasing productivity and speeding the movement of population from the countryside to the towns. The development of factory machinery powered by steam led to the concentration of manufacturing in towns where markets were close by and transport links good. An industrial working class clustered around the new factories and eventually older towns expanded rapidly and new towns were created where previously there had been villages. By 1850 a quarter of the British population lived in cities of over 100,000 and more than a half in conglomerations that could be described as urban. However, most of these areas had no political authority to police, regulate or represent them. The new middle class in the urban areas felt personally threatened by disorder and disease, and wanted in any case to have a healthier and more disciplined workforce in the factories.

Briefings 2.1 The Industrial Revolution

During the eighteenth century technology was increasingly applied to manufacturing processes, from cloth to iron, which had previously been carried out by hand in scattered artisan workshops. The most notable development was the use of mill machinery, which utilised water and steam power to spin and weave cloth and to shape metal. As a result, a large number of unskilled workers could produce more, better quality goods at a lower price. The use of a single power source and of a large, concentrated labour force prompted the invention of the modern factory. When steam was substituted for water power, factories were grouped near to coalfields and close to each other. These groupings of factories and associated workers’ housing produced industrial towns and cities, which developed an infrastructure of canals, roads, transport and services. By 1850 more than half the population of Britain lived in such settlements and Britain had become the first urbanised society. The factory owners, professionals and merchants who dominated the new cities formed a new political grouping that wanted a share in political power, and eventually the organised working class also wanted representation to improve their conditions. Thus the economic changes associated with the Industrial Revolution destabilised the old political order in which landed aristocrats and gentry dominated Parliament.

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Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Guided tour
• Preface
• List of abbreviations
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part 1 History
• Part 2 Government
• Part 3 Sovereignty
• Part 4 Popular Participation
• Part 5 Representation
• Part 6 Order
• Part 7 Policy
• Part 8 Assessment
• Glossary
• Index