Britain and Its Level of Democracy Essay

MP’s were unpaid for most of the nineteenth century and had to own land, although the property qualification ended in the 1850’s but only wealthy upper class men could be MP’s. The working class could not afford to give up their job to be a politician and that meant that their views and needs were poorly represented compared to the ones of the wealthy. This is clearly not democratic and wasn’t changed until 1911 when MP’s began to be paid allowing the right to become and MP to everyone

Parliament is very effective when dealing with the public and their interests and needs like when they redress public grievances to make sure they are listened too. However, parliament isn’t so effective on the representative side of things. This is because the electoral system that we use isn’t very fair and excludes smaller parties of a chance of being voted into parliament. This therefore means a large number of public votes have been

Direct democracy is a form of government in which all laws are created by a general vote of society. This means that political decisions are put forward to the people as they are the ones who are going to be directly affected by the outcome of the decision. An example of direct democracy used occasionally in society is referendums. A referendum is a general vote by the electorate on a single political question which has been referred to them for a direct decision. Within this essay I am going to be arguing whether direct democracy should be used more widely by weighing up the

There is an argument that the government has the power and right to change laws and represent people without necessarily having to be elected. This can also be known as ‘Democratic deficit’. An example of democratic deficit is the House of Lords. The members in the House of Lords aren’t elected but they get to make laws and represent the people. The members in House of Lords are usually given their seats hereditarily so many people found it unfair that they’re not elected into the Parliament but they can make decisions and laws

While the United Kingdom is considered a representative democracy it is arguable to how representative it is of everyone. It is highly unlikely that you would ever find an MP is Parliament who is from a lower class background with the majority of MPs coming from the middle and upper classes. This shows a problem with the UK’s system as not everyone is getting their voices heard in this regard. While it is possible for pressure groups to get their views heard by governments, they will ensure that pressure groups do not become so powerful they steal the government's legitimacy.

If the leaders of the country just keep creating policies and the majority of the citizens just accept them as they are, then this country really isn’t that big of a democracy as one may think it is.

This was the case for Labour in 1997 when they won a landslide majority of 418 seats in the House of Commons.

Modern British democracy is similar to Greek democracy since in both instances, the people have a voice in political decisions. However, in Britain, the people vote for officials to make decisions for them, and everyone has a right to vote, but in Greece, free men (20% of the population) directly made decisions. Greek democracy also relied on slavery so people could have enough time to participate.

They are the purest form and offer a direct way for participation in issues that directly affect the public. Referendums offer another way of participating directly and provide others with a way of commenting and participation in most of the decisions made in parliament. Referendums provide a vital direct link between government and the electorate which is otherwise unseen in representative democracies. They can help to promote political participation as well as creating a more informed electorate. Yet referendums, despite all of this are often criticised for the way in which they weaken elected bodies and do not provide a true gauge of public opinion, largely due to media influence in possibly spreading false information. However, as has been argued none of these arguments hold much weight, especially in the face of a system where the use of referendums have clear guidelines, as in Australia, to be used for constitutional amendments and wherever else is seen as fit by the elected bodies in power. Referendums are a tool which should be used more widely in today's political systems of democracy as they are a manageable and positive step towards a hybrid political system which effectively combines representative and direct democracy thus strengthening democracy

The dispersion of power in the UK varies greatly, each country having a different seat on the level-pegging of power over one another - in particular, policy areas, due to the various referendums, including ones already mentioned. This is called an asymmetrical devolution system.

In a democracy the citizens have the right to choose who represents them in government by having elections. This is what the government use to let the citizens make a decision on the individual or group that are going to represent them in Parliament, the citizens make their vote by choosing from a variety of potential candidates and they will vote for the candidate that they believe will

Ever since the advent of democratic systems of political decision-making in Ancient Greece, one of the primary concerns about democratic functioning has been the principle of majority rule. Whether a majoritarian system is divisive in its essence, paves the way for demagoguery, or obstructs minority groups from having a fair say in public affairs, criticisms of majority rule have and still persist nowadays. Indeed, notorious political figures such as Hamilton, Madison or Mill expressed concerns about the potential threat of a tyranny of the majority which would infringe on citizens’ fundamental rights. Moreover and recently, the outcome of the Brexit referendum has renewed the debate around majority rule and its flaws. However, within the context of the contemporary world in which democracy prevails, majority rule is the norm many states follow. Why is this so; how can majority rule be defended and what are its limits? In order to provide an articulate and coherent answer, it is first necessary to lay down some premises to the functioning of the democratic process. Then, after arguing for majority rule, its flaws shall be assessed before eventually drawing potential alternatives from such dysfunctions.

There have been many constitutional reforms since 1997 that is progressive towards a more democratic system, however it is not a complete democracy and there are still parts of the constitution could be improved. In 1997 Labour government came to power, with tony blair as prime minister, later Gordon Brown came to power between 2007 to 2010 have made a series of constitutional reforms. This was due to the fact that many practices of british politics were out of date, and therefore sought to modernise the constitution. Another main issue was that the central parliament, Westminster has too much power and therefore the labour party sought to decentralize

The results of recent elections in Britain raised many significant questions about current political situation in the country, particularly concerning electoral system. Therefore the problem of “crisis” in democracy of Britain was the subject of wide speculation among analysts and political scientists over last years. In addition it is widely recognized that the traditional electoral system in the UK-first past the post- is the main cause of that crisis and should be replaced as part of a plan to reconstitute the democratic culture (Kelly 2008). By longstanding critics of the system, opponents advocate the use of proportional representation (PR) for selecting MPs. Due to this problem it is going to be a referendum on changing the electoral

A democracy is when the common people are considered as the primary source of political power. Although democracy and absolutism had advantages and disadvantages, democracy was a more effective type of government for it limited royal power and protected the rights of the people socially, politically, and economically. Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, tension arose between the two different types of governments, the democracy and absolute monarchs.