America’s War of Independence led to an upsurge of support for reform in Britain, as the costly conflict heightened critiques of government repressiveness and lack of representation. In 1778, freeholders mobilized the Association Movement, which sought to raise a national wave of petitions in support of Parliamentary Reform. The movement and its affiliated Society for Constitutional Information caucused reformers of many causes – radical and moderate, including special-interest reformers seeking greater religious freedom and/or antislavery measures – together to make a common push for systemic changes.

American examples led British reformers to mobilize as they never had before. Amid the John Wilkes controversies of the late 1760s, which became a flash point for concerns over the unrepresentativeness of the British Parliament, government corruption, and rights to free speech, liberal supporters organized the Society of Supporters of the Bill of Rights with a Virginian as its secretary. Seeking to affiliate reformers’ support across Britain and the empire, while endeavoring to also support Americans during the prerevolutionary controversies, the Supporters and their successor organizations provide structure to the reform movement, whereas previously politicians had sought to maintain their “independence“ and avoid formal organizations.

The radical changes of the early First French Republic inspired British reformers to form their own unprecedentedly inclusive club network, the London Corresponding Society. Openly trying to recruit workingmen, unlike elite preceding Parliamentary Reform networks, the society pushed for universal suffrage and a rapid opening of British politics. The organization’s potential sparked a much more successful counter-mobilization, however, from the Society for the Preservation of Liberty and Property from Republicans and Levellers, which gloried in the unreformed British system and sought to repress reform agitation. After the Declaration of War with France in 1793, most dissent was driven underground.

The American War led to still-greater agitation in Ireland, where a national movement arose seeking self-government and reform of the Irish Parliament. Whereas the British Parliament for centuries had possessed the right to veto Irish legislation, the Volunteer militia movement beginning in 1778 mobilized – at first nominally against the threat of Franco-Spanish invasion but quickly turned its attention to agitating for legislative independence. The measure would be achieved by the war’s end, while the Volunteers also sought religious integration off their forces and the expansion of Irish suffrage.

Sets out what use Parliament has made of the Internet since 1996.

This chapter summarises the main findings of the book and indicates future directions for research. The analyses of floor apportionment showed that while gender is salient in the House of Commons, many other factors (such as seniority) also affect the uptake of speaking turns. Adversarial language was used by all groups of politicians to some extent, and it appears to be a common convention of political discourse. The benefits of adversarial language, such as the function of scrutiny, are underlined and ways of categorising more destructive types of adversarial language suggested. The ethnographic descriptions of the devolved institutions leads to suggestions about what makes a political institutions more egalitarian, including an equal distribution of minority groups in all political parties, and informality and flexibility of proceedings. With respect to linguistic analyses, the intertextual mechanisms by which homosocial bonds are formed seems a fruitful area for further research. Finally, the case studies point to sexist attitudes and representations of women politicians, coupled with increasing critical awareness and intolerance of such representations which may improve the conditions of participation for women in politics.