Constitutional reform in the United Kingdom explained

There have been various proposals for constitutional reform in the United Kingdom.^[1]

Current system

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a constitutional monarchy^[2] governed via a Westminster system of parliamentary democracy. It comprises the four countries of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.^{[2] [3]}

The UK operates a system of devolution from a central UK parliament and prime minister as head of government, to the devolved legislatures of the Scottish Parliament, Senedd and Northern Ireland Assembly with their respective first ministers. In England, Greater London, combined authorities, and the counties of Cornwall and Yorkshire, have varying degrees of devolved powers. There are proposals for an England-wide or regional devolution.^{[4] [5]}

The constitution of the United Kingdom is an uncodified constitution. There are two chambers of the UK parliament: the House of Commons and House of Lords. The UK has various overseas territories and crown dependencies, and is composed of three legal jurisdictions.

Proposed reforms

Dissolution

• Independence of Wales and Scotland and the unification of Ireland.^{[6] [7] [8]}
• Confederation of separate sovereign states.^[9]

National governance

• Increase in devolved powers to the constituent countries of the UK such as proposed further Welsh devolution and Scottish devolution and perhaps further Northern Irish reform.^[10]
• Adopt a federal system of governance between the countries of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.^{[11] [12] [13]}

Parliamentary reform

• Reforming the House of Lords; through either modification of the appointment process, reducing the number of Lords, removing the Lords Spiritual, or abolition.^[14]
• A "Senate of Nations" to replace the House of Lords.^[15]
• Parliament of the United Kingdom relocation^[16]
• House of Lords relocation^[17]

Electoral reform

• Electoral reform, such as by replacing the first-past-the-post voting system with proportional representation and/or lowering the voting age to 16.^[18]

Constitution codification

• Codification of the UK constitution.^[19]

Reform of monarchy

• Reform of the monarchy, which includes abolishing the monarchy. Abolishment of the monarchy is advocated by republicanism in the UK.^{[20] [21]}

Religious reform

• Ending the Church of England's status as the official church of the United Kingdom, known as disestablishment of the Church, which would make the UK a non-religious, secular state.^{[22] [23] [24]}

Human rights legislation

• The Bill of Rights Bill is a proposal to replace the Human Rights Act 1998.

See also

• Commonwealth of Britain Bill
• History of the constitution of the United Kingdom

Notes and References

1. Web site: Constitutional Reform and the Contribution of the Political Parties since the Beginning of the 20th Century. Richard Jones. Hummedia.manchester.ac.uk. 20 July 2022.
2. Web site: Toponymic guidelines for map and other editors, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland . 2022-04-15 . GOV.UK . en.
3. Web site: Standard: ISO 3166 — Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivision . 2022-04-15 . Iso.org.
4. Web site: The big read: Can federalism ever work in the UK? . 2022-03-10 . HeraldScotland . en.
5. Web site: Federalism . 2022-03-10 . LII / Legal Information Institute . en.
6. News: 2022-07-02 . Welsh independence: Thousands march through Wrexham . en-GB . BBC News . 2022-07-04.
7. News: 2022-06-28 . Scottish independence: Will there be a second referendum? . en-GB . BBC News . 2022-07-04.
8. Web site: 2022-05-18 . The inevitability of a united Ireland . 2022-07-04 . Politico.eu. en-US.
9. Web site: StackPath . 2022-04-11 . Instituteforgovernment.org.uk.
10. Web site: Dr Umesh Prabhu . 2017-07-10 . More devolution rather than independence: time for the SNP to rediscover the 'middle way' . 2022-07-04 . British Politics and Policy at LSE.
11. Web site: Reforming our Union 2021: summary [HTML] ]. 2022-07-04 . GOV.WALES . en.
12. Web site: 2021-01-14 . The Labour 'radical federalism' report is a necessary intervention - but an avoidable disappointment . 2022-07-04 . Nation.Cymru . en-GB.
13. Web site: Rodgers . Sienna . What is radical federalism, what would it look like and should Labour back it? . 2022-07-04 . LabourList . en-GB.
14. Web site: House of Lords reform . UK Parliament.
15. Web site: 2022-07-04 . Labour call for Senate of the Nations and Regions to replace the House of Lords . 2022-07-04 . Nation.Cymru . en-GB.
16. Web site: Adonis . Andrew . 5 January 2022 . Relocating parliament to Birmingham or Manchester is an idea whose time has come . prospectmagazine.co.uk.
17. Web site: Coleman . Charley . 9 June 2022 . Co-location of the Houses of Parliament . lordslibrary.parliament.uk.
18. Web site: Proportional Representation . 2022-07-04 . Electoral-reform.org.uk . en-US.
19. Book: Melton, James . TO CODIFY OR NOT TO CODIFY? . Constitution Unit, UCL . 2015.
20. Web site: 2022-05-04 . Queen has "huge problem" as support for abolishing monarchy rises . 2022-07-04 . Newsweek . en.
21. News: 2022-02-17 . Clearly Britain loses more than it gains from the monarchy. Let us be brave and end it Polly Toynbee . 2022-07-04 . . en.
22. News: 2017-09-07 . The disestablishment of the church is now necessary and inevitable Giles Fraser: Loose canon . 2022-07-04 . . en.
23. News: Letters . 2017-09-08 . Whether or not to disestablish the Church of England Letters . 2022-07-04 . . en.
24. Web site: Disestablish and be damned . 2022-07-04 . Newhumanist.org.uk . 16 October 2017 . en-GB.