Who takes part in general elections in the united kingdom?

Answer 1

In order to vote in the United Kingdom, you must satisfy the following requirements:

• British or Irish citizen
• Over 18
• Not a convict serving in prison
• Not a member of the House of Lords
• Registered on an electoral register

In municipal elections, anyone who is resident, over 18 and is an EU citizen can vote. In parliamentary elections, British and Irish citizens over 18 who are resident and some British overseas residents can vote

Answer 2

In order to be eligible to stand in a British general election, potential candidates must satisfy a number of criteria.

The House of Commons is the elected lower house of the British Parliament and is designed to be representative of the people. Although most adults are eligible to stand in a general election, certain categories of people are ineligible.

Candidate Eligibility

In basic terms, anybody who is a British, Commonwealth or Irish Republic citizen can stand as a candidate in a British general election provided that they are aged 21 or over.

However, eligibility is not quite as clear-cut as it may at first appear since there are in fact several categories of people who are disqualified from sitting in the House of Commons. These categories are:

1. Members of the House of Lords

2. Clergy of the Church of England, Church of Scotland, Church of Ireland and the Roman Catholic Church

3. Undischarged bankrupts

4. Offenders who have been sentenced to more than one year of imprisonment

5. Persons convicted of corrupt practices at elections are disqualified from standing for 7 years

6. People holding offices listed in the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975 since they must be politically impartial when carrying out their jobs. The included offices are:

• Senior civil servants
• Judges
• Ambassadors
• Members of the regular armed forces
• Members of the police force
• Paid members of the boards of nationalised industries
• Government-appointed directors of commercial companies
• Directors of the Bank of England

Where a disqualified person has successfully stood for election, that person is unable to take their seat in the House of Commons and their defeated opponent can apply to have the election declared null and void. There are 2 fairly recent occasions where this has occurred:

• Tony Benn was the MP for Bristol South East when, in 1960, he inherited a peerage on the death of his father and so was disqualified from membership of the House of Commons. Despite this, Benn stood at the 1961 by-election and was re-elected. His defeated Conservative opponent had the election declared null and void and so was declared the winner. However, the publicity that surrounded all of this led to the Government introducing the Peerage Act 1963 which allowed peers to disclaim their titles and so become eligible to sit in the Commons. Tony Benn promptly disclaimed his peerage, the sitting MP stood down and in the by-election that followed Benn was re-elected.
• Despite his serving a fourteen year prison sentence at the time, Bobby Sands was elected as the Republican candidate in the Fermanagh and South Tyrone by-election. Sands was legitimately elected but was unable to sweat the oath of allegiance or take up his seat due to his imprisonment. Sands died on the 9th April 1981 and so the Commons avoided having to decide whether to expel him or not but his election did lead to the Representation of the People Act 1981 which disqualified those serving more than one year in prison from standing for election.

Although certain categories of people are ineligible to stand in a general election, the vast majority of people are eligible to stand for Parliament and this is one of the essential freedoms of British democracy.

Any eligible candidate wishing to stand in a British general election must adhere to the official selection procedure.

In order to become a candidate in a British general election, an interested person must first demonstrate that they are eligible for election and then must go through a stringent selection procedure.

Simply put, any eligible person can become a candidate in a British general election whether they are a member of a political party or not.

However, there are certain standard procedures that must be followed. Any candidate wishing to stand for election must be nominated on an official nomination form that gives their full name and address. The form also contains space for an optional 6-word political or personal statement. The nomination form must also include the signatures of 10 electors who support the candidate, including a proposer and a seconder.

The candidate is then responsible for consenting to their nomination in writing. They must also pay a £500 deposit which is forfeited if they fail to gain at least 5% of the votes cast in their constituency.

The nomination paperwork and deposit must be submitted to the returning office in the candidate's constituency during a specified time in the election campaign.

The Best Chance of Success

Although any eligible person can stand, in order to have a realistic chance of success a candidate needs to represent one of the 3 main British political parties or a nationalist or unionist party in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.

Candidates that have been approved by their political party are advised of vacancies within the constituency as they arise and the local party organization are expected (although not compelled) to consult the list of approved candidates before they select who they wish to represent them. Usually a shortlist of potential candidates is drawn up and then interviews are held.

The candidate selected by the local party organization must then be approved by the party nationally (for example, labor candidates must be approved by the National Executive of the Labor Party). If the national organization do not approve of the prospective candidate, they can overrule the local party organization and select their own candidate but such a measure would be likely to alienate potential voters.

After Selection

Once a candidate has been officially selected, the security of their situation depends upon the party which they represent. Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs remain as their party's candidates between elections unless they stand down or, as rarely happens, they are deselected by their local party organization. Labor MPs, on the other hand, must undergo reselection procedures in their constituencies before each general election.