'Background to British Politics (POL108) is a first-year module, from which you will gain a grounding in the historical background to contemporary UK politics. Together, we will interrogate a series of critical institutions, developments, and turning points in British history and assess their impact on British politics today. We will first explore the British Empire, the process of decolonisation, and contemporary disputes over imperial legacies in UK politics and society. We will then follow the development of the UK’s constitutional and democratic institutions and its main political parties over the last two centuries, focusing on the changing representation of different classes, genders, ethnicities, communities and interests. After this, we will explore three key debates of British political history after the Second World War. We will, firstly, explore the postwar settlement of nationalized industries and the welfare state, and ask whether there was a ‘postwar consensus’ after 1945. Secondly, we will consider how Margaret Thatcher emerged as the disruptive and dominant political figure of the 1980s and the legacy of her governments for our politics today. Thirdly, we will consider the role played by European integration (or ‘Europe’) in British politics from the 1970s until the 2010s. We will finish with two weeks on the political traditions of ‘conservatism’ and ‘socialism’ and their place in the recent history of the Conservative and Labour parties.