Berlin

Mo. 06.06.2011, 18:00 bis 20:00

Vortrag

The Coalition in Britain

Will Britain become more like Germany?

Großbritannien-Zentrum der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Mohrenstr. 60
10117 Berlin
Berlin Brandenburg

Beschreibung:

`England’, Benjamin Disraeli famously said, `does not love coalitions’. But 2010 saw the first peace-time coalition in Britain since the 1930s. The coalition, moreover, may well not be an aberration. For there are signs that, with the rise in strength of third parties, hung parliaments are more likely to recur than in the past. Perhaps, therefore, the era of single-party majority government, to which Britain has have become accustomed since 1945, is coming to an end. Germany is of course used to coalitions. But is the British constitution equipped to deal with coalition? Are alterations in the procedures of parliament or government needed to cope with it?

In Britain, the inter-party agreement between the coalition partners in Britain proposes a wide ranging series of constitutional reforms, the most important of which are fixed-term parliaments and a referendum on the alternative vote electoral system was held in May 2011. The coalition is also proposing measures to reduce the size of the House of Commons, to directly elect the House of Lords and to strengthen localism. These reforms, if implemented, could permanently alter the way Britain is governed. What, then, is the significance of coalition government for Britain and of the constitutional reforms which the coalition is proposing. Will Britain become more like Germany?

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