Britain between the Wars

1918-1939

Politics during the inter-war years

How was Britain governed in the inter-war period?

In 1918, at the end of the First World War, Britain was still a constitutional monarchy, in so far that this form of government consisted in a balance between the monarch and the parliament. This “mixed” government had the advantage to respect the idea of democracy (rule of the people, for the people, by the people”) through the elections but meanwhile to prevent tyranny while enabling effectiveness.
“It is by this mixture of monarchical, aristocratical and democratical power, blended together in one system, and by these three estates balancing one another, that our free constitution has been preserved so long inviolate” declared 18th-century theorist Henry St John Bolingbroke. A few centuries later, in May 1945, Prime Minister Winston Churchill would tell the House of Commons:
“If it be true, as has been said, that every country gets the form of government it deserves, we may certainly flatter ourselves. The wisdom of our ancestors has led us to an envied and enviable situation. We have the strongest Parliament in the world. We have the oldest, the most famous, the most secure, the most serviceable monarchy in the world. King and Parliament both rest safely and solidly upon the will of the people expressed by free and fair election on the basis of universal suffrage. Thus the system has long worked harmoniously, both in peace and in war.”

Contrary to absolute monarchy where the king detains all the powers, the political influence of the monarch was here limited by a written document called the Constitution. Besides, the monarch acted as the ceremonial head of the state and had to elect a Prime Minister, leader of the largest party and so of the government, who would exercise effective political power. As for the king, he would only undertake key ceremonial duties such as receiving foreign visitors, staging banquets