British Politics Quotes

Britain is no longer in the politics of the pendulum, but of the ratchet.

I'm not a political thinker, but I've just always thought of myself as a Labour supporter. I was a great fan of Tony Blair. He sent me a letter before I swam the Channel to wish me luck.

The whole of Britain’s international trading system, foreign policy and even Britain’s various conflicting political parties were maintained for one reason; and for one reason alone – that the money power of the world may rule the British people and through them they may rule mankind.

To apologize for the Balfour Declaration would be to apologize for the existence of Israel and to question its right to exist. Here in Britain, we will not merely mark the centenary - we will celebrate it with pride.

It's very important to say that what I mean when I say 'liberal' is liberal in the 19th-century British sense. Pro-market, pro-individual, freedom, pro-openness. Not the American sense.

David Cameron was a good-looking chap in his day!

There seems to be a sense in the British media that prime ministers enjoy going to war. They do not. The decision to send British soldiers into battle is the worst and most stomach-churning senior politicians have to take. It makes them wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat worrying if they have done the right thing.

When people go to vote still in Britain, they will look at their local representatives, but I don't think there is a sort of cult of personality politics. Obviously, they want to know who the leader is for each party, but I think there is a lot of identification with their local candidates.

It excites world wonder in the Parliamentary countries that we should build a Chamber, starting afresh, which can only seat two-thirds of its Members. It is difficult to explain this to those who do not know our ways. They cannot easily be made to understand why we consider that the intensity, passion, intimacy, informality and spontaneity of our Debates constitute the personality of the House of Commons and endow it at once with its focus and its strength.

I would do whatever I could to make Jeremy Corbyn more electable, but you've got to give me something to work with, mate.

Your dependence upon the crown is no advantage, but rather an injury to the people of Britain, as it increases the power and influence of the King.

British democratic values are embedded in the primacy of parliament.

Britain is probably the most sophisticated combination of a monarchy and a democracy.

Any criticism of Thatcher throws a dangerously absurd light on the entire machinery of British politics. Thatcher's name must be protected, not because of all the wrong that she had done, but because the people around her allowed her to do it.

I personally hope and wish that Britain will stay part and parcel of the European Union.

I don't see any possibility of Britain and the U.S. allowing a sovereign independent Iraq; that's almost inconceivable.

As far as I'm concerned, when the Queen, who we all love very much, is finished with her reign then Britain should go and stop being a banana republic as it is when we have the royal family and become a real republic.

I do have a fundamental concern about us losing control of our own destiny, and this is not just about the euro. You can expand and extend it into the whole constitutional issue. The British people have been suckered with regard to how the whole currency and constitutional issues have been sold to them.

Margaret Thatcher was as viscerally hated at home as she was warmly respected abroad.

Britain has supported theocrats and dictators as long as it served British business interests, whether under Tory or Labour rule.

Will there be a political backlash against British Prime Minister Theresa May, whose ruling Conservative Party is traditionally seen as 'stronger' on terrorism than its main rival, the Labour Party?

The thing is, I was always a republican, but I have to say I've become completely obsessed with the Queen.

The move towards neoliberalism in Britain was intimately bound up with the embrace of the U.S. as the country to be aped and copied.

No. I am not a royalist. Not at all. I am definitely a republican in the British sense of the word. I just don't see the use of the monarchy though I'm fierce patriot. I'm proud proud proud of being English, but I think the monarchy symbolizes a lot of what was wrong with the country.

Margaret Thatcher inherited a country in transition. The British Empire was still a considerable entity well into the 20th century.