Introduction
Over the years, United Kingdom politics have generated a lot of interest globally. In the recent past, the centre stage of the UK political arena has been the formation of a coalition government in 2010 between two major UK political parties; the conservative and the liberal democrats.
This paper is going to dwell on the coalition government as a change in political policy that has caused the emergence of the UK political reforms and its effects (Dorey, Garnett, & Denham, 2011).
Cause of Political Reforms
The UK grand Coalition was arrived at in order to solve and accommodate for different political ideologies for the sake of government continuity. This was seen as the only amicable way of ensuring that the leading party had garnered the requited majority seats to be head of the government as required by the constitution.
Bearing in mind that this was the first coalition since 1945, it become apparent that, there was a dire need of initiating political reforms. The reforms were destined to avoid the emergence of such conflicts in the future (Liberal Democrats, 2011).
Under the leadership of Prime Minister David Cameron and his assistant Nick Clegg a new political dispensation policy was proposed in form of political reforms. The main agenda behind the proposed political reforms involve the need to ensure that power is devolved to the grass root levels in order to guarantee more representation in the Westminster.
These reforms also call for accountability and transparency in the legislature and the cabinet in order to ensure that the government is sensitive to the needs of the people it serves. This also, ensures that government policies are people centred thus reducing political influence on policy formulation and implementation.
The major issues highlighted in the political reforms include the inclusion of the right to recall a member of parliament whose conduct is not consistent with the constitution, the establishment of a new electoral system, establishment of proportional but fewer constituency that ensure equal representation, empowering the backbench members of parliament, introducing the election of members of the house of lords, devolution of power and introducing e-petitions that force members of parliament to vote on issues of national importance (Liberal Democrats, 2011).
Effects of Political Reforms
The progress of political reforms in the UK has had major effects on the political landscape and on people’s view with regards to the political mileage that the coalition government has been able to attain (Dorey, Garnett, & Denham, 2011).
Some of the most notable effects of the political reforms include the changes that have been brought about by e-petitions which require 100,000 petitions to ensure that the legislature bills are no longer mere discussions among the members of parliament within their lobby groups but open discussions monitored by the public (The official site of the British Prime Minister’s Office, 2011).
Further, the parliament through the speaker has also implemented political reforms in the sense that all parties have an equal voice in the parliament. This has also seen the emergence of an empowered backbench representation which has consistently kept the cabinet on check.
Therefore, maximizing on policy implementation and ensuring that the cabinet fulfils its mandate to the people. Transparency and accountability has also received a major boost in the parliament through election of competent members of committees as opposed to the previous predicament of nominated members of a committee.
In addition, political reforms have also introduced the five year parliamentary term and a boundary review to reduce the number of constituencies (The official site of the British Prime Minister’s Office, 2011).
References
Dorey, P., Garnett, M., & Denham, A. (2011). From Crisis to Coalition: The Conservative Party, 1997-2010. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Liberal Democrats. (2011). Political Reform. Web.
The official site of the British Prime Minister’s Office. (2011). The Coalition: One year on. Web.