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    So Parliament, then

    I was just wondering how much power the minority party has in Parliament to enact its own agenda and block the ruling party's agenda.

    #2
    So Parliament, then

    Not sure, but I wouldn't want to mess with George Clinton.

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      #3
      So Parliament, then

      Which country are we talking about?

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        #4
        So Parliament, then

        I was talking about the UK specifically.

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          #5
          So Parliament, then

          There is no English Parliament.

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            #6
            So Parliament, then

            the system of parliamentary parties, and whips means that the opposition may as well not be there.

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              #7
              So Parliament, then

              The minority parties have almost no power at all to drive legislation. There's an outside chance they could get sufficient MPs from the majority party to put through single bills, although usually these would either also be sponsored by the government; or if they're opposed by the government and they're major legislation, the government's MPs will almost certainly side with their party to avoid the risk of weakening the government.

              The best way to drive agendas is either on the very small stuff, or to use parliament as a platform to talk to the public at large. But that's only publicity. It's very hard to actually do anything.

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                #8
                So Parliament, then

                Setting aside GO's point, not a lot if the government has a decent Commons majority unless the government is outnumbered in the Lords. Filibusters aren't very effective (although they have been used on occasion as protests more than anything else) and the government almost completely sets the agenda.

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                  #9
                  So Parliament, then

                  I assume by mentioning "Parliament" in the first place, we're talking the UK, here. As the main example of the model where members of the "executive", the body that proposes new laws (aka, for simplicity, the "Government") also serve as members of the body whose support is needed to enact that legislation (the "legislature"), in equal part. Most Western democracies have a separation of powers between the executive and the legislature, but not many have the same people represented in both. In the UK, Gordon Brown can vote "yes" to his own proposals in Parliament like anyone else. As, indeed, would (normally) any of the 50 or so MPs who serve in his Cabinet, or in junior Ministerial positions.

                  So if we're talking the UK, it depends very much on the nature of the times, and the issue in question. At various times in the UK in the last 30 years, "Parliament" has been a virtual irrelevance to the Government (Thatcher's first two landslide Parliaments, similarly Blair's first two) where the majority of the MPs in the legislature from the ruling party was so large, and support among those MPs for the direction of the Government's agenda so popular, that any concerted effort by the "rest" would be futile. On other occasions - for example during the Callghan, or Major, administrations - the ruling party's majority was so slender that it virtually depended upon the support of a significant minority of supposedly "opposition" voices, to outvote any dissenting or abstaining voices within the "ruling party" to succeed (this has also been the norm for the way that the Senate has worked in Washington for many administrations in the same period). We're currently living through one of those curious periods in the UK where the most significantly important "opposition" to Brown's administration is not "the official opposition" (whose numbers are, still, too small on their own to bring down any bill he proposes) but the malcontents on his own "backbenches" - of whom, if 30 or so vote against him and in concert with the Tories and the Lib Dems (but, don't assume automatically that any "alliance" of that nature is always easily manufactured) his legislation may be voted down.

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                    #10
                    So Parliament, then

                    The main "power" the minority parties have in Parliament, I should add, rests often not in the main votes on third Readings of proposed legislature on the floor of the House, but in the Committees that oversee the passage of the Bill through its considerative stages. These Committees are made up in broad proportion to the make-up of the parties, but being only 25-or-so strong, and tending to be made up of MPs with particular vested interests that might be along subject lines not party lines, have incredible power to recommend amendments to, or even major revisions to, White Papers as they progress towards the final vote stages back in Parliament itself. If at Committee stage the Goverment Minister chairing that committee understands the way the wind might be blowing, proposed legislation may be significantly amended. At the moment, most Parliamentary Committees are made up of about 15 Labour, 10 Tory, 2 Lib Dem and one or two minority party MPs, so you can see the potential for any disaffected 'backbench' MPs to really wield their influence there with the "other side".

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