British Parliament Quotes

The king had a right to all uninhabited countries that should be discovered and possessed by any of his subjects and that the charters he freely granted to American companies had explicitly denied any latent claims of a British Parliament.

I don't want to be Prime Minister of England, I want to be Prime Minister of the whole of the United Kingdom.

Every good Englishman, abstracted from all regard for America, must oppose … being taxed by the British Parliament. For my own part, I am convinced that no argument … can be produced in support of this right.

I have great respect for British political institutions. I regard the British Parliament as the most democratic institution in the world, and the independence and impartiality of its judiciary never fail to arouse my admiration.

I love London, I love the British people.

The House of Lords is the British Outer Mongolia for retired politicians.

The House of Lords is like a glass of Champaign that has stood for five days.

The extraordinary exertions of the colonies, in cooperation with British measures, against the French, in the late war, were acknowledged by the British parliament to be more than adequate to their ability.

Great Britain.

What happened with Brexit was people taking back control.

An empty taxi arrived at 10 Downing Street, and when the door was opened, Clement Atlee got out/

It is recorded how towards the end of the eighteenth century a Muslim visitor to England was taken to see the House of Commons at work. He later wrote of his astonishment at finding the that the British Parliament actually made laws and fixed punishments for their infraction - because unlike Muslims the English had not accepted a divine law revealed from heaven and therefore had to resort to such unsatisfactory expedients. Muslims still understand the expression 'the rule of law' very differently than do most Westerners.

British politics, as the world knows, is a joke. Yet it's rarely funny.

Constitutionally, a revising chamber is useful and important. The first occasion I know of in history when the Lords fulfilled this role was in 1539 when Henry VIII's act of proclamations was neutered by their lordships so effectively that the Act was repealed in 1547.

There is no alternative. Either the colonies are a part of the community of Great Britain, or they are in a state of nature with respect to her, and in no case can be subject to that legislative power which represents her community, which is the British Parliament…. They [the American colonists] ought to reflect, that whatever may be their condition, they cannot apply to parliament to better it. If they reject the jurisdiction of parliament, they must not in any case sue for its interposition on their behalf.

A wise and salutary neglect

[The passage of the Sugar Act] set people a thinking, in six months, more than they had done in their whole lives before.

[Congress] is not the British Parliament, and I hope it never will become the British Parliament... Are we going to bring the president in here and have a question period like the prime minister has in Great Britain?

I lay before you an act of the British Parliament anticipating this subject so far as to authorize a mutual abolition of the duties and countervailing duties permitted under the treaty of 1794. It shows on their part a spirit of justice and friendly accommodation which it is our duty and our interest to cultivate with all nations. Whether this would produce a due equality in the navigation between the two countries is a subject for your consideration.

When the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British parliament was advised by an artful man [Sir William Keith], who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people. That it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them. But that they should not do it openly; but to weaken them and let them sink gradually, by totally disusing and neglecting the militia.

The house of Lords must be the only institution in the world which is kept efficient by the persistent absenteeism of most of its members.

It does not good to shout anyone down….There will be no shouting.

Resolved, that whoever shall aid or abet, or in any manner assist, in the introduction of tea from any place whatsoever, into this colony, while it is subject, by a British Act of Parliament, to the payment of a duty, for the purpose of raising a revenue in America, he shall be deemed an enemy to the liberties of America.

Basically, I have no place in organized politics. By coming to the British Parliament, I've allowed the people to sacrifice me at the top and let go the more effective job I should be doing at the bottom.