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Given that this is my home country, I figure I'll give an answer to the questions that I posit to others.

• What is the general ideology of the political elite? Do they tend to be protectionist nationalists, or are they more free trade globalists? Are they compradors put there by foreign powers? Are they socialists with wide support by the population?

The UK political elite range from protectionists to globalists. The Brexit vote was at least partially founded on the idea of turning inwards, bringing power to domestic industries and not allowing as much European influence. It's obviously more complicated than that, because the UK was not about to become autarkic - instead, the proposed plan was to abandon EU deals that were perceived as limiting and engage more with the rest of the world, so in reality, it was almost contradictorily protectionist and globalist. It goes without saying that this "plan" was more-or-less smoke and mirrors for all but a few true believers, merely intended for profit and, of course, to ride on racist sentiments. In practice, at the end of the day, the UK elite are pretty firmly globalists. They were among the original practitioners of neoliberalism and have similarly exported industries abroad, with Thatcher's reign being especially intense in terms of deindustrialization but the trend has not been appreciably slowed except when there was not much else to export. Nowadays, the UK economy is based generally on high-end industrial products and finance capital, insurance, etc etc. Socialists do exist and actually have made more grounds than in America, a country which the UK is very reasonably compared to, with Corbyn's control of the Labour party in the late 2010s being the best recent example, but socialism here tends to be tainted with social conservatism, as Galloway is a good example of.

• What are the most important domestic political issues that make the country different from other places in the region or world? Are there any peculiar problems that have continued existing despite years or decades with different parties?

Britain deals with several legacies. The most unique of which is that they were once the center of the world's largest empire before the United States. When things fell apart in the 20th century, their power waned, but the artifacts and memory of this legacy still remain in the population, especially in older people who were educated about the UK as a world-bestriding colossus, or were taught by people who grew up in that era and with that propaganda. There is a general feeling in the political sphere - often unarticulated but detectable with the right lens - that the UK, or even the world, is a worse place now that their very visible and formal imperialism has collapsed, and people pine for the "good old days" even if they don't explicitly state it; this is comparable to older people in the US who are nostalgic for a simpler and more united time such as the, uh, 1950s and 1960s before black people obtained de jure rights.

Another legacy is that of their conflict with Ireland over the centuries, and particularly the most recent conflict called The Troubles, which Thatcher tragically survived. However, I personally haven't seen anybody think that trying to reclaim or fight Ireland is a good idea right now and seem pretty content to just let things be. Things are a little more complicated when talking about Northern Ireland, and people probably don't want to hand that over to Ireland, but that's outside of my current knowledge so I'm not gonna talk much further on it. Scottish independence is another domestic political issue which has been much less violent, though there are many in Scotland who are passionate about it. Scotland has its own party called the SNP which usually achieves large numbers of votes, but there's also always been support for Labour and the Conservatives too.

There is, finally, the Brexit vote, which I've already pointed out, where the UK sought to leave the EU due to a perceived sense of getting a bad deal (for what it's worth, the UK has always had benefits from the EU not afforded to other nations inside it; it's been allowed to keep its currency and not adopt the euro, for example, which Greece would be jealous of). It's been an issue that dominated British political discourse since at least 2016 after the vote for it narrowly succeeded, and doesn't neatly fall upon the Conservative-Labour divide. In fact, it seems almost perpendicular to it, with pro and anti-Brexit Labour and Conservative voters, with everybody each having their own collection of reasons why they think it's a good or bad idea. Nowadays, with the UK outside of the EU, the issue has predictably died down, with plenty of people supporting either side still but with a general sense of being disappointed by the results ("They went too hard!" or "They didn't go hard enough!" etc).

• Is the country generally stable? Are there large daily protests or are things calm on average? Is the ruling party/coalition generally harmonious or are there frequent arguments or even threats?

The UK is relatively stable. There are large protests especially recently due to Israel's genocide in Gaza, but there is no sense of a fracturing political scene in the sense of "Oh shit, the government might possibly collapse!" There have been a couple points where the government has seemed a little shakier than usual - the first being in 2019 when there were rumblings that if Corbyn were to win, that the military (and probably the Central Bank and other such institutions) would rebel against his rule, but he failed to win for other reasons. The second was when Liz Truss was briefly made Prime Minister in late 2022, before resigning very shortly after and being replaced by her unelected main rival Rishi Sunak. With Keir Starmer taking control of the Labour Party, the two main parties have maintained the Western democracy pantomime of pretending to have big disagreements while actually agreeing on most things and being a one-party state. There are, of course, lots of arguments between politicians - neither party is a monolith - but nothing that threatens stability meaningfully.

• Is there a particular country to which this country has a very impactful relationship over the years, for good or bad reasons? Which one, and why?

The UK has had a LOT of relationships due to the nature of being an empire, although the UK probably cares much less about them than they care about the UK. All of the independence days around the world celebrating them breaking off from the UK are proof of that. That all being said, to keep things brief, I would say that the UK has had a strong relationship with the USA (first adversarial due to the colonial relationship, and then gradually becoming allied in the 19th and 20th centuries); Argentina (the Falklands War); France (centuries-long history of alliances and wars); Israel (selling the territory that would become the occupied state of Palestine to Zionists); China (the Opium Wars); and Australia (similar to the USA, except without a war to separate the two countries; Australia was once a penal colony for the UK).

• What are the political factions in the country? What are the major parties, and what segments of the country do they attract?

The UK's political factions are composed of the Conservatives, the Labour Party, and the Liberal Democrats. Regional parties in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland also exist, and there are plenty of tiny parties that gain little support. I'm not very familiar with the history of the Conservatives, but the analogy sometimes made that they're approximately the same as the Democrats are in America isn't too far from the truth. Labour has shifted over time from a more genuinely socialist-oriented party albeit more reformist than revolutionary in the first half of the 20th century, to the "New Left" Labour which took power at the turn of the millennium under Tony Blair which essentially surrendered to the Conservative ideology and merely argued that they could steer the ship more competently. As stated before, there was a brief socialist resurgence under Corbyn, but for a variety of reasons (which are still debated to this day), he failed to create a party that could defeat the Conservatives, and since 2020, the Labour Party has once again fallen into the "New Left", or perhaps now the New New New Left.

The Liberal Democrats are the party that I'm the least familiar with but are really the third party in England, forming coalitions to allow one party or another to gain a majority. I'm not precisely sure what they claim to believe in, but in practice they seem to float around; sometimes being in the center, sometimes being on the center-left, and sometimes being on the center-right. The only "event" that I'm strongly aware of in recent history is when Nick Clegg, who led the party from 2007 to 2015, basically let everybody after forming a coalition with the Conservatives and not getting some big promises out of them. I can't say I've particularly cared about them since then.

• Are there any smaller parties that nonetheless have had significant influence? Are there notable separatist movements?

I've already mentioned the Northern Ireland parties that have sought independence and also the Scottish National Party, but for the latter, their independence referendum was voted down 45-55 in 2014, which has dampened enthusiasm for the project. There was rumblings during the Brexit days that Scotland might try and declare independence to re-join the EU but those only remained rumblings. The SNP experienced a fall from grace due to a controversary that I only half-remember which prompted the leader, Nicola Sturgeon, to resign in 2023, then being replaced by Humza Yousaf. Once again, they're the majority party but not the only party in Scotland; certainly not in the Scottish Parliament.

Takeouts decent, need to force the population to watch Threads and Come And See for 24 hours straight (saw someone with a nafo tshirt the other day).