Labour, 1997 to 2010

Domestic politics moved fast in the closing years of the century. The Labour Party under Tony Blair won power in 1997, ending years of Conservative government and bringing a programme of constitutional change with it. In Northern Ireland, years of negotiation produced the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, also known as the Belfast Agreement, setting out a plan for shared, devolved government there.

The following year, in 1999, that plan took shape further: Scotland gained its own Parliament, Wales its own Assembly, and the Northern Ireland Assembly was elected for the first time too, each with new powers to run affairs that had previously been decided only in Westminster. Devolution reshaped how the different nations of the United Kingdom were governed, each in its own way and at its own pace.

Labour's leadership changed hands within the same government some years later. In 2007, Gordon Brown succeeded Blair as Prime Minister, taking over the government the party had led for a decade.