Office of Prime Minister - A Very English Government Position

Up until the 1600s England had a chief administrator answerable to the monarch but as the role of chief administrator began to grow with more responsibility being devolved and political change started to take hold the claim of  monarchical absolutism was challenged. It wasn't until the 1600s when the English monarch effectively abandoned the throne and was officially removed by parliament through a parliamentary convention and the new monarch, by dint of birth, was contested that the rise of English parliamentary sovereignty began to take hold. It was during this time that the English political parties began to emerge first as factions and then as the political parties that would stand in parliament.

The Whigs, who were against monarchical absolutism due to their religious beliefs, were founded in 1678.  In 1859 the party dissolved and merged with the English Liberal Party. The Whigs opposition was the Tory Party which was founded in 1679.

The Tories supported the monarchy and objected to the monarch's exclusion as they believed that inheritance based on dint of birth was the foundation of a stable society. Like the Whigs, the Tories dissolved in the 1700s though this was due to having been excluded from parliament for a few decades due to their hugely unpopular repressive attitude. When they reemerged after undergoing a fundamental change it was as the Conservatives and then later, when the Liberal Party split, it merged to become the Conservative and Unionist Party.

The Labour Party emerged in England as a consequence of civil unrest in the latter stages of the 19th century and became the opposition to the Conservatives replacing their Whig turned Liberal Party rivals.

However, it wasn't until the mid 1800s that the English governmental office of Prime Minister would be officially recognised as ever more responsibilities were devolved to it. Retrospectively, the first Prime Minister of England post-1700 was attributed to Robert Walpole, born in Norfolk, England, who held the position from 1721-1742. 

Of the 55 Prime Ministers 43 were born in England. Of the remaining 12 every single one represented an English political party.

List of English Born Prime Ministers and Political Party Represented

Robert Walpole, Norfolk - Whig

Spencer Compton, Warwickshire - Whig

Henry Pelham, Sussex - Whig

William Cavendish, Westminster (baptised) - Whig

Thomas Pelham-Holles, London - Whig

George Grenville, Buckinghamshire - Whig

William Pitt Snr, London - Whig

Augustus Henry Fitzroy,  Grafton - Whig

Frederick North, London - Tory

Charles Watson-Wentworth, Rotherham - Whig

Henry Addington, London - Tory

William Pitt Jnr, Kent - Tory and Whig

William Wyndham Grenville, Buckinghamshire - Whig

William Cavendish-Bentinck, Buckinghamshire - Whig

Spencer Perceval, London - Tory

Robert Banks Jenkins on, London - Conservative

George Canning, London - Tory

Frederick Robinson, London - Tory

Charles Grey, Northumberland - Whig

William Lamb, London - Whig

Robert Peel, Lancashire - Conservative 

Henry Temple, London - Whig and Liberal

John Russell, London - Whig

Edward Smith Stanley, Lancashire - Tory and Whig

Benjamin Disraeli, London - Conservative 

William Gladstone, Liverpool - Liberal

Archibald Primrose, London - Liberal

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, Hertfordshire - Conservative

Herbert Asquith, Yorkshire - Liberal

David Lloyd George, Manchester - Liberal

Stanley Baldwin, Worcestershire - Conservative 

Neville Chamberlain, Birmingham - Conservative 

Clement Attlee, London - Labour

Winston Churchill, Oxfordshire - Conservative 

Anthony Eden, County Durham - Conservative

Harold MacMillan, London - Conservative

Alec Douglas -Home, London - Conservative

Edward Heath, Kent - Conservative

Harold Wilson, Yorkshire - Labour

James Callaghan, Hampshire - Labour

Margaret Thatcher, Lincolnshire - Conservative

John Major, Surrey - Conservative

David Cameron, London - Conservative

Theresa May, Eastbourne - Conservative

Non English Born Prime Ministers and Political Party Represented

John Stuart, Edinburgh, Scotland - Tory.

William Petty, Ireland - Whig

Arthur Wellesley, Ireland - Tory

George Hamilton Gordon, Edinburgh, Scotland - Conservative

Arthur Balfour, East Lothian, Scotland - Conservative 

Henry Campbell-Bannerman, Glasgow, Scotland - Liberal

Andrew Law, Canada - Conservative

James McDonald, Lossiemouth, Scotland - Labour.  

Tony Blair, Edinburgh, Scotland - Labour 

Gordon Brown, Glasgow, Scotland - Labour

Boris Johnson, USA - Conservative

From the 1700s through to the 1900s Scotland had seen civil wars, the outlawing of their language, culture and heritage, highland clearances, deportations and indentured servitude, rebellions and massacres. Those who obtained office did so by prostrating themselves at the feet of the English. The lifestyles, titles and privileges too good to pass up. 

Perhaps it started off as fear. Fear of what lay in store for them if they did not back the English. Fear that they too would be sent to pastures new or publicly beaten to an inch of their lives. A promise of riches, security, prestige lay in wait if only the prostrated themselves at the altar. And so they did. Not everyone needed coaxing, of course. But the threat was as real.

There were no real opposition to the English political parties in the parliament of Great Britain. Not until SNP were formed in the 1930s with the sole aim of restoring Scotland's full statehood and terminating the 1707 Treaty of Union. However, centuries of English governments sitting in the state parliament, unchallenged and unopposed by Scotland, with a few notable Scots seduced by prestige representing English political parties and governments, has seen even the SNP fall foul to English hegemony, referring to the Prime Minister of England and the English government it represents as though they have dominion over Scotland and its people. Representatives of the SNP have been seduced by prestige and privilege just as those before them. Inevitably this has led to a split in the Scottish National Party just as England's political parties had done during its political evolution. As the rivalry between the SNP and Alba becomes ever more pronounced and the original aim of the party to restore Scotland's full statehood  is put front and centre by Alba will Scotland's representatives continue to fall foul having been indoctrinated into an English political system or will they recognise the Prime Minister of England and the English political parties that they represent for what they are? Extensions of the English establishment pre and post union.