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| United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland Ruvaneth Unys Breten Veur hag Iwerdhon Gledh Reeriaght Unnaneysit y Vretyn Vooar as Nerin Hwoaie An Rìoghachd Aonaichte na Breatainn Mhòr agus Eirinn a Tuath Unitit Kinrick o Great Breetain an Northren Ireland Teyrnas Unedig Prydain Fawr a Gogledd Iwerddon | |
|---|---|
 Flag
 Coat of arms
| |
.svg) | |
| Capital and largest city | London |
| Dominant mode of production | Imperialist Capitalism |
| Government | Unitary parliamentary bourgeois state |
• Monarch | Charles Windsor |
• Prime Minister | Keir Starmer |
| Legislature | Parliament |
| House of Lords | |
| House of Commons | |
| History | |
• Annexation of Wales by the Kingdom of England | 1536 |
• Annexation of Scotland by the Kingdom of England | 1707 |
• Annexation of Ireland by Great Britain | 1801 |
• Independence of Republic of Ireland from United Kingdom | 1922 |
| Area | |
• Total | 242,495 km² (78th) |
| Population | |
• 2020 estimate | 67,886,004 |
| Labour | |
• Labour force | 34,708,550[1] |
• Labour force participation | 78.1%[3] |
• Occupation | agriculture: 1.3% industry: 15.2% services: 83.5%[4] |
• Unemployment rate | 4.8%[2] |
| GDP (nominal) | 2021 estimate |
• Total | $3.124 trillion[5] |
• Per capita | $46,344[5] |
| Exports | 2019 estimate |
• Value | $894.077 billion[6] |
• Commodities | cars, gas turbines, gold, crude petroleum, packaged medicines[4] |
• Partners | United States (15%), Germany (10%), China (7%)[4] |
| Imports | 2019 estimate |
• Value | $924.69 billion[7] |
• Commodities | gold, cars, crude petroleum, refined petroleum, broadcasting equipment[4] |
• Partners | Germany (13%), China (10%), Netherlands (7%) |
| External debt | $8.721 trillion[4] (2nd) |
| Gini (2018) | 33.5% |
| HDI (2019) | 0.932 |
| Currency | Pound sterling (GBP) |
| Driving side | left |
| Calling code | +44 |
| ISO 3166 code | GB |
| Internet TLD | .uk |
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, often shortened to the United Kingdom or UK, is an imperialist island country located in Europe. It comprises England, Scotland, and Wales as well as Northern Ireland which encompasses six occupied counties belonging to the Republic of Ireland. The UK was a founding member of NATO and SEATO. It has the fourth largest military budget in the world and the second most foreign military bases behind the United States of America. MI6, the British secret police, has connections to the NSA and Five Eyes.[8] The British Empire was a major colonial power and was responsible for over 160 million deaths in India alone.[9] Britain retains influence in its former empire using imperialist organisations such as the Commonwealth.[10]
History
Feudal Britain
See main articles: Kingdom of England (927–1707), Kingdom of Scotland (843-1707)
Great Britain
Following the bourgeois revolution of 1688, the number of capital crimes rose from 50 to over 200, and most of the new additions were minor property crimes. Stealing a single shilling was punishable by death. The bourgeoisie also enclosed and privatized common lands held by the peasantry. Beginning in 1717, Britain began mass deportations of (usually poor) convicts to the colonies.[11]
In July 1745 Charles Stuart led the last Jacobite Rebellion in an attempt to restore the House of Stuart as the British Monarchs. Following defeat at the battle of Culloden, Charles fled back to France in June 1746 ending the rebellion.[12] Following the rebellion Henry Pelham's Whig Government started a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the highlander population, supressing their culture and forcibly removing them from their land.[13]
Slavery was banned within England in 1772 but continued to exist in its colonies. Free Africans fought for the British during the Statesian Revolution, but many were deported to Sierra Leone afterwards.[14]
England suspended habeas corpus for eight years starting in 1794.[15]
Great Britain and Ireland
The United Kingdom suspended habeas corpus again in 1817 and committed the Peterloo Massacre in 1819. Between 1800 and 1850, it deported 1,800 dissidents to Australia for political crimes, including Chartists, Jacobins, and Irish people.[15]
Motivated by a fear of the French Revolution, the Whig prime minister Charles Grey passed the Reform Act of 1832, which expanded suffrage from 400,000 to 650,000. It prevented landlords from appointing rural representatives but did not reach the universal male suffrage demanded by the Chartists. Around the same time, the UK repealed the Corn Laws, which had imposed tariffs and set high prices for wheat. The Poor Law of 1834 worsened conditions in workhouses and abolished outside relief for the poor.[16]
During the late 19th century, Benjamin Disraeli, despite his pro-slavery views, expanded voting rights to sections of the working class.[17] His 1867 Reform Act allowed non-Anglicans (including Catholics, Jews, and some Protestants) to vote.[18]
Britain participated in the First World War on the side of the Entente, fearing that German domination of Europe would threaten the security of the British Empire. Following German defeat, Britain took control of several colonies previously belonging to the Central powers. In Africa, Britain secured Namibia, and Tanzania from Germany whilst in the Middle East, the British received Palestine, Jordan and Iraq from the Ottoman Empire.[19]
Great Britain and Northern Ireland
In 1939, the British made a secret agreement with Nazi Germany to stay out Germany's spheres of influence in Eastern Europe and avoid an alliance with the Soviet Union in exchange for Germany not attacking the British Empire.[20]
Following the loss of its colonial empire, the UK was in a severe economic crisis by the early 1970s. Dockworkers and miners organized large strikes in 1972 and 1974. The Labour government of James Callaghan applied for an IMF loan in 1976 and imposed austerity on the working people.[21]
Margaret Thatcher blamed unions for the crisis and took power in 1979. She introduced mass privatisation and strengthened monopolies while increasing imperialist aggression against Ireland. Under Thatcher's rule, unemployment, crime, and poverty increased. Both the Conservative and Labour parties opposed the 1984–85 miners' strike.[21]
When Labour returned to power under Tony Blair in 1997, he continued many of Thatcher's policies while creating social democratic reforms to weaken the revolutionary movement.[21]
The Conservatives returned to power under David Cameron in 2010, first in a coalition with the Liberal Democrats before achieving an outright majority in 2015. The Tories immediately set about demolishing the country, imposing austerity on the British proletariat, cutting funding to all services and beginning mass privatization whilst ensuring the bourgeoisie continued accumulating wealth. The Conservatives in this time consented to two referendums, the first ended in a narrow failure for the question of Scottish independence whilst the latter was on the question of Britain leaving the European Union.[22]
On 23 June 2016, in a blow to global imperialism, the British people voted in favour of Brexit setting in motion a long process of negotiating its exit from the EU.[23] The success of the vote led to the resignation of Cameron and several chaotic years in which Cameron's successor Theresa May and her own successor Boris Johnson - after May's utter failure - attempted to negotiate an agreement for leaving the EU, before a deal was finally reached nearly 4 years later.[22] On 31 January 2020 the ratified agreement came into affect and Britain officially left the EU after 47 years of membership, entering a transition period where the terms of the agreement were phased in.[24]
After leaving the EU the Conservatives descended further into open corruption and made little secret of their ransacking of the country at the behest of the bourgeoisie and to the detriment of the general population. Mismanagement continued under the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic with Johnson throwing a party whilst the rest of the country was under lockdown before Johnson was finally forced to resign for hiring someone accused of sexual misconduct. Johnson's successor Liz Truss wrecked the economy even faster than her predecessors as well as overseeing the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II before forced to resign herself and hand over to Rishi Sunak who only continued the trend of driving the UK into ruin.[22]
Colonialism
See main article: British Imperialism
The British Empire colonized parts of North America, Africa, Asia, and Oceania and controlled nearly 25% of the world's land area at its peak.[25]
Politics
The UK is a Bourgeois democracy organised as a constitutional monarchy and a unitary parliamentary democracy. The Parliament is made up of three central elements; the House of Commons, the House of Lords and the Crown. The UK is made up of 650 constituencies, the residents of which vote in one MP, in a first past the post electoral system, to represent them in the House of Commons, the house responsible for creating legislature, and the party with the most MPs forms the government.[26] The House of Lords and the Monarch are both unelected, the formers job is to scrutinise legislature and return it to the commons for amendments whilst the latter performs ceremonial tasks, and wastes public money.[27]
General elections for the House of Commons take place at most every five years but may be called earlier should the sitting government decides to call for one. Until the late 19th century, the landowning aristocracy completely controlled the House of Commons. In seven general elections from 1760 to 1800, less than 10% of rural seats were contested.[18] From 1716 to 1911, Parliament members were elected every seven years.[28]
It was only in 2015 that a law was put in place which allowed constituents to recall their representative but this can only be activated should the MP have broken a law or rule and been suspended from parliament. Following the conditions being met, a minimum of 10% of their constituents must sign a recall petition within six weeks. If the recall petition is successful then a bi-election is called for their seat, the recalled MP may stand in this election if they wish to. There is no course of recall for an MP that governs against the wishes of their constituents, MPs are effectively unaccountable until the following general election.[29]
Devolved governments
| Country | Population | Total Area | Capital | Parliament | First Minister |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| England | 56,489,800 (2021) | 130,279 km2 (50,301 sq mi) | London | none | none |
| Scotland | 5,436,600 (2022) | 77,933 km2 (30,090.1 sq mi) | Edinburgh | Scottish Parliament | John Swinney |
| Wales | 3,267,501 (2022) | 20,779 km2 (8,022.82 sq mi) | Cardiff | Senedd | Vaughan Gethingd |
| Northern Ireland | 1,903,100 (2021) | 14,130 km2 (5,455.62 sq mi) | Belfast | Northern Ireland Assembly | Michelle O'Neill |
Scotland
Scotland is split up into 32 counties, and 59 constituencies, most of these constituencies are held by MPs for the Scottish Nationalist Party[30] who also control most seats in the Scottish parliament. The Scottish Government and Parliament were established in 1999 with its powers and duties set out in UK parliament legislation, this made Scotland the largest region of the UK to have its own parliament. There are 129 Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs), for each person in Scotland they are represented by one constituency MSP and 7 regional MSPs each elected by a bourgeois system of proportional representation called the Additional Member System.[31]
Active Political Parties
Conservative and Unionist Party
The Conservative Party, also called the Tory Party, is a right-wing to far-right neoliberal party currently lead by Rishi Sunak.
Labour Party
Labour is a bourgeois social-democratic party that is a de facto neoliberal party currently lead by Keir Starmer, currently the ruling party of the UK. V.I. Lenin called it "a thoroughly bourgeois party" in 1920, and little has changed since them.[32][33]
Liberal Democrats
The Liberal Democrats are a liberal party currently lead by Ed Davey. It is based on the old bourgeois Whig Party.[33]
Scottish National Party
The Scottish National Party (SNP) is a nationalist social-democratic party that advocates for an independent Scotland. The party is currently lead by John Swinney.
Communist party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist)
The Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist–Leninist) (CPGB-ML) is the largest Marxist-Leninist political party in the UK. CPGB-ML holds reactionary ideas regarding LGBT rights dismissing them as identity politics.[34]
Communist Party of Britain
The Communist Party of Britain (CPB) is a revisionist communist party currently lead by Robert Griffiths.
Reform UK
Reform UK is a far-right party representing the most nationalistic segments of the British bourgeoisie. It was founded by, and is currently led by, Nigel Farage.
Dependencies
_in_the_World_(%2BAntarctica_claims).svg)
British overseas territories are the remnants of the British Empire which the British Imperialists are yet to relinquish control of. These territories are: Anguilla; Bermuda; the British Indian Ocean Territory; the British Virgin Islands; the Cayman Islands; the Falkland Islands; Gibraltar; Montserrat; Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha; the Turks and Caicos Islands; the Pitcairn Islands; South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands.[35]
The British also occupy two military bases on the island of Cyprus, Akrotiri and Dhekelia, that remained under British control when Cyprus declared independence in 1960. The British refuses to return these bases to Cypriot sovereignty because they have use for them as outposts of imperialism in western Asia.[35]
The British also claim a section of the uninhabited continent of Antarctica known as the British Antarctic Territory. The territory is administered from London, and scientists conduct experiments at various bases such as Rothera, Halley VI, and Signy Research Stations.[35]
In addition, the British occupy the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean, where a joint US/UK military base has been established on Diego Garcia. The native Chagossian inhabitants were forcibly expelled from their homes in the late 1960s by the British government and now live in abject poverty abroad. Although the United Nations have deemed the occupation to be illegal under international law, the British have refused to return the territory to its native inhabitants, claiming that the ruling is just an "advisory opinion".[36]
Military
The UK has 145 military bases in 42 countries and territories, including five countries encircling China. The 15 British bases in Saudi Arabia are contributing the Saudi invasion of Yemen. In 2021, the British government published a document saying it would expand its nuclear arsenal from 200 to 260 weapons, which is a violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.[8]
See also
References
- ↑ World Bank (2020). Labour force total – United Kingdom.
- ↑ Trading economics (2021). United Kingdom unemployment rate
- ↑ World Bank (2019). Labor force participation rate, total (% of total population ages 15-64) (modeled ILO estimate) - United Kingdom
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 CIA World Factbook (2020). United Kingdom – The world factbook (economy)
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 International Monetary Fund (2021). World Economic Outlook database: April 2021
- ↑ World Bank (2019). Exports of goods and services (current US$) - United Kingdom
- ↑ World Bank (2019). Imports of goods and services (current US$) - United Kingdom
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Kenny Coyle (2022-09-28). "British Imperialism – A Threat to World Peace" Australian Marxist Review. Retrieved 2022-11-27.
- ↑ Ben Norton (2022-12-12). "British empire killed 165 million Indians in 40 years: How colonialism inspired fascism" Multipolarista. Retrieved 2022-12-16.
- ↑ Sara Flounders (2022-09-13). "How royalty reinforces imperialism through Commonwealth of Nations" Workers World.
- ↑ Domenico Losurdo (2011). Liberalism: A Counter-History: 'White Servants' (pp. 77–79). [PDF] Verso. ISBN 9781844676934 [LG]
- ↑ "Jacobite timeline of key events" (2024). The National Archives.
- ↑ "Scotland Back in the Day: How the brutal atrocities of the Highland Clearances changed Scotland forever" (2016-07-19). The National.
- ↑ Domenico Losurdo (2011). Liberalism: A Counter-History: 'Liberalism and Racial Slavery: A Unique Twin Birth' (pp. 48–52). [PDF] Verso. ISBN 9781844676934 [LG]
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 Domenico Losurdo (2011). Liberalism: A Counter-History: 'Crisis of the English and American Models' (p. 175). [PDF] Verso. ISBN 9781844676934 [LG]
- ↑ "Charles Dickens, champion of the poor" (2012-06-01). Proletarian. Archived from the original on 2023-02-05.
- ↑ Domenico Losurdo (2011). Liberalism: A Counter-History: 'Liberalism and Racial Slavery: A Unique Twin Birth' (p. 63). [PDF] Verso. ISBN 9781844676934 [LG]
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 Domenico Losurdo (2011). Liberalism: A Counter-History: 'Were Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century England and America Liberal?' (pp. 117–120). [PDF] Verso. ISBN 9781844676934 [LG]
- ↑ "1914-2014: Imperialism means war" (2023-07). Lalkar. Archived from the original on 2023-08-07.
- ↑ Ludo Martens (1996). Another View of Stalin: 'Stalin and the anti-fascist war' (p. 187). [PDF] Editions EPO. ISBN 9782872620814
- ↑ 21.0 21.1 21.2 Nikos Mottas (2023-04-15). "Margaret Thatcher: Symbol of Capitalist Barbarism" In Defense of Communism. Archived from the original on 2023-04-15. Retrieved 2023-04-16.
- ↑ 22.0 22.1 22.2 Esther Addley (2024-07-04). "Did that really happen? 14 years of chaotic Tory government" The Guardian.
- ↑ O'Rourke, Kevin H (2019). A short history of Brexit: from brentry to backstop: 'Chapter Eight: Brexit'.
- ↑ "Brexit: UK leaves the European Union" (2020-02-01). BBC. Archived from the original on 2020-03-14.
- ↑ Larry Holzwarth (2018-03-17). "10 Atrocities Committed by the British Empire that They Would Like to Erase from History Books" History Collection. Archived from the original on 2021-06-16. Retrieved 2022-05-21.
- ↑ "General Elections" (2023). UK Parliament. Retrieved 2023-11-29.
- ↑ "The two-House system" (2023). UK Parliament. Retrieved 2023-11-29.
- ↑ Domenico Losurdo (2011). Liberalism: A Counter-History: 'Crisis of the English and American Models' (p. 136). [PDF] Verso. ISBN 9781844676934 [LG]
- ↑ "Recall elections" (2023). UK Parliament. Retrieved 2023-11-29.
- ↑ "2019 General election results Scotland" (2023). UK Parliament. Retrieved 2023-12-07.
- ↑ "What's the difference between the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government?" (2023). Scottish Parliament. Retrieved 2023-12-07.
- ↑ “Of course, most of the Labour Party’s members are working men. However, whether or not a party is really a political party of the workers does not depend solely upon a membership of workers but also upon the men that lead it, and the content of its actions and its political tactics. Only that determines whether we really have before us a political party of the proletariat. Regarded from this, the only correct point of view, the Labour Party is a thoroughly bourgeois party, because, although made up of workers, it is led by reactionaries, and the worst kind of reactionaries at that, who act quite in the spirit of the bourgeoisie. It is an organisation of the bourgeoisie, which exists to systematically dupe the workers with the aid of the British Noses and Scheidemanns.”
Vladimir Lenin. V. I. Lenin: Collected Works-Volume 31: April-December 1920: 'Speech On Affiliation To The British Labour Party'. [LG] [MIA] - ↑ 33.0 33.1 "Great Britain," in Boljšaja sovjetskaja enciklopjedija, 3rd ed. (Moscow: 1971), vol. 4, p. 412-452.
- ↑ "Why gay rights is not a class issue" (2019-04-20). Proletarian. Retrieved 2023-11-22.
- ↑ 35.0 35.1 35.2 "United Kingdom Overseas Territories – Toponymic Information" (2020). GOV.UK.
- ↑ "Chagos Islands dispute: UK obliged to end control - UN". BBC. Retrieved 23/06/2024.