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Why the Labour Government is Not Representative of the People

Jonathan Stephen Harry Riley
2 min readOct 7, 2024

In the UK political system, the dominant party tends to be the party that commands a majority in the House of Commons.

The prime minister controls the majority and can manage Parliament.

In the UK political system since the 13th century, the person who rules England controls and commands a working majority within the House of Parliament.

Until the 18th century, that function was traditionally the king, which had fantastic and disastrous results.

This was because the monarch who understood politics understood compromise, and the political community could pursue whichever political goals they deemed fit.

King Henry VIII of England was king from 1509 to 1547.

King Henry Viii of England

He broke from the Roman Catholic Church in the 16th century, broke his coronation oath, and ended Catholicism and the Monastery’s in England because he commanded the English Parliament.

In modern times, the English Parliament and whoever commands the largest majority is the individual who commands the House of Commons, and the individual becomes Prime Minister due to winning the most seats in the House of Commons.

In Britain, the electoral system is a representative first-pass-the-post system where the winner…

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Jonathan Stephen Harry Riley
Jonathan Stephen Harry Riley

Written by Jonathan Stephen Harry Riley

I have been writing from 2014 to the present day; my writing is focused on history, politics, culture, geopolitics and other related topics.

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