The Governmental Model in the UK

The governmental model that operates in Britain today is usually described as constitutional monarchy, or parliamentary system. While a monarch still has a role to play on some executive and legislative levels, it is Parliament, which possesses the essential power, and the government of the day, which governs by initiating and controlling political policy and legislation. The correct constitutional definition of Parliament is “Queen-in-Parliament”, and all state and governmental business is therefore carried out in the name of the monarch by the politicians and officials of the system.

In constitutional theory the British people hold the political sovereignty to choose their government, while Parliament, consisting partly of their elected representatives in the Commons, possesses the legal sovereignty to make laws.

The various branches of this political system, although easily distinguishable from each other, are not entirely separate. The monarch is formally head of the executive, the legislature and the judiciary.

The legislature, which consists of both Houses of Parliament and formally the monarch, is for most purposes the supreme law-making body.

The executive comprises the sitting government and its Cabinet, together with government ministers of departments headed by ministers or secretaries of state, who all act formally in the name of the monarch.

The judiciary is composed mainly of the judges of the higher courts, who determine the common law and interpret Acts of Parliament. The judiciary is supposed to be independent of the legislative and executive branches of government.