change has been very gradual and pragmatic and built on consensus.the political system is not neat or logical or always fully democratic or particularly efficient.almost uniquely in the world, Britain has no written constitution (the only other such nations are Israel, New Zealand and Saudi Arabia).Is this true of any other country in the world? I can only think of Sweden. For almost 1,000 years, Britain has not been invaded or occupied for any length of time or over any substantial territory as the last successful invasion of England was in 1066 by the Normans. The single most important fact in understanding the nature of the British political system is the fundamental continuity of that system. HOW HISTORY HAS SHAPED THE POLITICAL SYSTEM So the British have never had anything equivalent to the American Revolution or the French Revolution, they have not been colonised in a millennium but rather been the greatest colonisers in history, and in neither of the two world wars were they invaded or occupied. There was a time in British history which we call the Glorious Revolution (1688) but it was a very English revolution, in the sense that nobody died, if a rather Dutch revolution in that it saw William of Orange take the throne. Some might argue that the English Civil War (1642-1651) was the nation's revolution and - athough it was three and a half centuries ago - it did bring about a major shift in power, but the main constitutional consequence - the abolition of the monarchy - only lasted 11 years and the Restoration of the Monarchy has so far lasted 350 years (although it is now, of course, a very different monarchy).

None succeeeded.ДЇurthermore, in recent centuries, Britain has not had a revolution of the kind experienced by so many other countries. Meanwhile, although the Normans were the last to mount a successful invasion of the country, there were plenty of other plans to conquer the nation, notably the Spanish under King Philip II in 1588, the French under Napoleon in 1803-1805, and the Germans under Hitler in 1940. The northern (Protestant) Irish did not want independence and so the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland arrived. Understandab y the southern (Catholic) Irish never reconciled themselves to being ruled by the English and rebelled in 1916 and gained independence in 1922.

The Irish parliament was abolished in 1801 with Ireland returning members to Westminster and the new political entity was called the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. They succeeded with the first two and failed with the last despite several wars over the centuries.Д«y one of those ironical twists of history, when Queen Elizabeth of England died in 1603, she was succeeded by her cousin James VI, King of Scots who promptly decamped from Edinburgh and settled in London as King James I of England while keeping his Scots title and running Scotland by remote control.ДЄ century later the Scottish economic and political elite bankrupted themselves through something called the Darien Scheme and agreed to a Union between England and Scotland to make themselves solvent again and so Great Britain with one Parliament based in London came into being in 1707. The Normans were not satisfied with conquering England and, over the next few centuries, tried to conquer Ireland, Wales and Scotland. We probably need to start in 1066 when William the Conqueror from Normandy invaded what we now call England, defeated the Anglo-Saxon King Harold and established a Norman dynasty. Like its (unwritten) constitution, the British state evolved over time. This is especially true of the United Kingdom because its history has been very different from most other nations and, as a result, its political system is very different from most other nations too. To understand fully any country's political system, one needs to understand something of its history. How History Has Shaped The Political System.

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