After the end of World War II in 1945, the UK was one of the Big Four

powers (the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, the U.S. and China) who met
to plan the post-war world;[100][101] it was an original signatory to the
Declaration of the United Nations. The UK became one of the five
permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. However, the
war left the UK severely weakened and depending financially on the
Marshall Plan.[102] In the immediate post-war years, the Labour
government initiated a radical programme of reforms, which had a
significant effect on British society in the following decades.[103]
Major industries and public utilities were nationalised, a Welfare State
was established, and a comprehensive, publicly funded healthcare system,
the National Health Service, was created.[104] The rise of nationalism in
the colonies coincided with Britain's now much-diminished economic
position, so that a policy of decolonisation was unavoidable.
Independence was granted to India and Pakistan in 1947.[105] Over the
next three decades, most colonies of the British Empire gained their
independence. Many became members of the Commonwealth of Nations.[106]
Although the UK was the third country to develop a nuclear weapons
arsenal (with its first atomic bomb test in 1952), the new post-war
limits of Britain's international role were illustrated by the Suez
Crisis of 1956. The international spread of the English language ensured
the continuing international influence of its literature and
culture.[107][108] As a result of a shortage of workers in the 1950s, the
UK government encouraged immigration from Commonwealth countries. In the
following decades, the UK became a more multi-ethnic society than
before.[109] Despite rising living standards in the late 1950s and 1960s,
the UK's economic performance was not as successful as many of its
competitors, such as West Germany and Japan.
The UK entered the European Economic Community in 1973. In a referendum
held in 1975, 67% of voters voted to remain in the EEC.[110]
In the decade-long process of European integration, the UK was a founding
member of the alliance called Western European Union, established with
the London and Paris Conferences in 1954. In 1960 the UK was one of the
seven founding members of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), but
in 1973 it left to join the European Economic Community (EEC). When the
EEC became the European Union (EU) in 1992, the UK was one of the 12
founding members. The Treaty of Lisbon was signed in 2007, which forms
the constitutional basis of the European Union since then.
From the late 1960s, Northern Ireland suffered communal and paramilitary
violence (sometimes affecting other parts of the UK) conventionally known
as the Troubles. It is usually considered to have ended with the Belfast
"Good Friday" Agreement of 1998.[111][112][113]
Following a period of widespread economic slowdown and industrial strife
in the 1970s, the Conservative Government of the 1980s under Margaret
Thatcher initiated a radical policy of monetarism, deregulation,
particularly of the financial sector (for example, Big Bang in 1986) and
labour markets, the sale of state-owned companies (privatisation), and
the withdrawal of subsidies to others.[114] This resulted in high
unemployment and social unrest, but ultimately also economic growth,
particularly in the services sector. From 1984, the economy was helped by
the inflow of substantial North Sea oil revenues.[115]
Around the end of the 20th century there were major changes to the
governance of the UK with the establishment of devolved administrations
for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.[116] The statutory