Democracy is part of our everyday lives in Britain. It is all about being able to have a say in decisions that affect us and sharing responsibility for outcomes. When a group of people is given a choice, a simple show of hands is democracy in action, whether choosing between tea or coffee, or where to go for lunch. In the case of the drinks run, an individual expects their vote to deliver a specific outcome. When voting for a preferred lunch venue, a range of outcomes is possible, from consensus to total disagreement. A straw poll vote reveals which of the proposed options appeals to most in the group. Once they know where they all stand, they can decide whether to go with the majority, or work together to find another way that better accommodates each other’s preferences. Further discussion and compromise might be required before a decision is reached that everyone can live with. For democracy to work, participation is key. If a member of the group does not express a view, they cannot expect the outcome to be what they want.
A straw poll is a quick, simple, and informal tool to gauge views, make decisions or narrow options in a democratic way.
Photo by fizkes on 123RF.
When it comes to government, we also like to have a say in the direction in which the country is taken and to hold those in power to account. In Britain today, we periodically elect representatives to make decisions on our behalf at local and national level. Those elected to serve are mainly answerable through the ballot box but the British also have a history of political protest and campaigning to bring pressure to bear between elections. However, the British people have not always had a voice. Democracy is a relatively modern development in Britain. For centuries after the Middle Ages, political life in the British Isles was dominated by national monarchs.
The journey from monarchy to democracy in Britain has been long, complicated and often bloody. After the Norman conquest, English monarchs needed the support of the nobility (wealthy landowners) and the clergy to ensure broad cooperation for their laws and policies amongst their subjects. Great Council meetings would be called to enable the king to consult with and obtain consent from the nobility and the senior clergy on major decisions. Those who attended were not elected but selected and appointed by the Crown. This system was not immune to power struggles, however, such as the disagreements between Thomas Becket and Henry II over the jurisdiction of the church which resulted in Becket’s murder, and between King John and the barons that was the precursor to the Magna Carta. The Great Council continued to evolve and was first referred to as “Parliament” in the 1230s. The next significant development came in 1264, when, as a result of King Henry III’s unpopular foreign policies and local government abuses, a group of rebel barons, led by Simon de Montfort, deposed him and took control of government. Montfort’s Parliament of 1265 was the first in which representatives from each of the counties (knights of the shire) and towns (burgesses) in England were brought together with the nobles and bishops to discuss matters of national interest, other than the granting of taxation. As such, it was the forerunner of our modern Parliament. The inclusion of common men was known as the summoning of "the Commons" from the Norman French word "commune", meaning "community of the realm" and continued after Henry regained power following Montfort’s death at the Battle of Evesham (1265). In 1341, the Commons and the nobility and clergy separated into lower and upper chambers for the first time (but it was not until 1544 that the Upper Chamber became known as the House of Lords and the Lower Chamber became known as the House of Commons, together forming the Houses of Parliament).
In the struggle for power between the monarchy and Parliament, the balance gradually tipped towards the Commons. By mid-15th century, it controlled the King’s purse strings and was a full partner in the formation of statute. Henry VIII's Reformation Parliament (1529-36), summoned to resolve the thorny issue of his divorce from Catherine of Aragon, resulted in a fundamental shift of power from the Church to Parliament. The laws passed in response to this crisis were ground-breaking: they led to the break with Rome, establishment of the Church of England, and enshrined the supreme legal authority or sovereignty of Parliament. Although Parliament still only existed at the behest of the monarch, Henry VIII knew that the most effective way to get laws passed was through the assent of Parliament in statute. This cooperation between monarchs and Parliament continued during Elizabethan times but came to an abrupt end with the accession of Charles I (1625-49). The tension between the King’s ‘divine right’ to rule unhindered (a principle established by James I, 1603-25) and Parliamentary authority, particularly its control over taxation, was thrown into sharp relief. Charles tried to go it alone but his attempts to conquer Scotland foundered due to lack of financial support. Following a humiliating defeat by the Scots at Ripon (1640), Charles was left with no alternative but to return cap in hand to Parliament. In May 1641 an emboldened Parliament was able to extract an unprecedented concession from the King in an act that prohibited the dissolution of the English Parliament without Parliament’s consent. Thus, the battle lines were drawn between King and Parliament and the slide towards Civil War had begun.
The English Civil War (1642-51) was fought not only over the nature of England’s governance but also how the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland were to be governed. It ended with Parliamentarian victory at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651. Casualties were heavy, particularly in Ireland. Following the trial and execution of Charles I (1649) and exile of his son, Charles II (1651), the Commons abolished the monarchy and England and Wales became a republic, called the Commonwealth of England (1649-53). Power was vested in Parliament and a Council of State. During this period, fighting continued between the Parliamentary forces and those opposed to them, particularly in Scotland and Ireland. In 1653, the Protectorate was formed, unifying the British Isles as the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland, under the personal rule of Oliver Cromwell (1653–1658). This brief flirtation with republicanism was not a resounding success and could not survive Cromwell’s death in 1658. Although the monarchy was restored in 1660, the idea of the divine right of kings was discredited. In this way, the republican experiment laid the foundations for a modern democratic model of monarchy limited by constitution which emerged after the so-called Glorious Revolution (1688-89), when James II was deposed by his daughter Mary II and her husband, William III of Orange in a bloodless coup. The principle of Parliament’s primacy over the Crown was established in statute by the Bill of Rights (1689).
Unlike the Civil War, the Glorious Revolution did not involve ordinary people. The reality was that King and the upper classes remained in control, with power concentrated in a small group of Protestant men whose composition hardly changed. The middle and labouring classes continued to have very little say in politics - women, Catholics, and those without land still did not have the vote. It was not until the 19th century that the political landscape started to change as the disenfranchised began to find their voices. In 1811-12, there were widespread protests against mechanisation by hundreds of workers known as Luddites. A mass meeting of workers and their families was held at St. Peter’s Fields, Manchester on 16 August 1819 calling for voting reform and a free press. It was a peaceful meeting but militia drew their swords to clear the crowds and, in the subsequent confusion, between nine and fifteen people were killed and four to seven hundred injured. The event was called the "Peterloo massacre" by the Manchester Observer newspaper in a bitter reference to the bloody Battle of Waterloo which had taken place four years earlier. Although the vote was given to a further 400,000 people in 1832, it mostly just the middle classes and it was not until the Representation of the People Acts of 1918 and 1928 gave the vote to all men and women over the age of 21 that Britain finally became a democracy.
The fact that we have universal suffrage is a good thing. It is a privilege that has been hard won and certainly not something that we should ever take for granted. It can, however, give us a false sense of empowerment by making us feel that we live in a democracy and that everyone has a say. Regrettably, the way that politics in this country works, the process that should enable citizens to participate in the decision-making of government is deeply flawed and far from democratic in practice.
The antiquated British electoral system, based on first-past-the-post (FPTP) in single-member constituencies, is demonstrably unfair. Historically, it has resulted in high levels of disproportionality between the overall share of votes a party receives across the country and the number of Parliamentary seats achieved. As such, it discriminates against smaller parties and means that the views of a significant percentage of the electorate are underrepresented in Parliament. The reason this system has survived so long is because it favours the top two parties, the Conservatives and Labour. In elections over the last 100 years, either one or the other has, more often than not, been able to command an overall Parliamentary majority despite only receiving a minority of total votes cast (which, of course, represents an even smaller proportion of the population eligible to vote). The political landscape in Britain is changing but the electoral system is failing to keep pace. As the number of parties increases to represent more diverse ideological viewpoints, the old duopoly is losing support. We now have multi-party politics that is being constrained by the straightjacket of an outdated and incompatible FPTP electoral system. Whilst most of our European neighbours have moved to proportional electoral systems which are designed to translate votes for multiple parties into a fair number of seats in Parliament, we cling to FPTP even though it has the effect of producing governments that are not representative of what the nation voted for. Furthermore, another detrimental side-effect of the FPTP system is that it drives the two main parties away from the centre ground in order to differentiate themselves from each other and give the electorate a clear choice. In practice, as we have seen, this works against moderate, consensual politics and increases the move towards more extreme, divisive, and partisan election campaigns and governments. Although supporters of FPTP rail against hung parliaments, this was the outcome of both the 2010 and 2017 elections. Coalition governments do not have to be a bad thing as, by their nature, they require parties to find common ground which makes them more representative. For real democracy to thrive and governments to better represent the plurality of views held by the electorate, there needs to be a change of mindset. Our politicians need to learn how to form effective coalition governments, or at least how to operate in a less partisan way, and the electorate needs to understand what to expect of them.
In addition to these issues with our electoral system, the lack of transparency and accountability in our politics is further undermining our democracy. From gerrymandering to the prevalence of cheating during elections (i.e. breaching of spending limits, clandestine funding of online ads that spread fake news, and exploitation of social media for voter manipulation and mass surveillance purposes), the implications are that this already loaded system is skewed even further. Election campaigns require funding but it is the way that they are funded that is causing problems. By far the biggest challenge facing our democracy is that our politics is controlled by people with money – the more wealth you have, the stronger your influence. A small number of very wealthy but faceless donors can have a disproportionate impact on the outcome of elections, and on the policies that are subsequently enacted by the winning side. Because they have so much at stake, they will stop at nothing to ensure victory, including the use of negative advertising and personal attacks. Our political funding system allows the mega-rich too much access to, and influence over, those running for Parliament or holding positions of power in government. Politicians seek to ingratiate themselves with rich donors in order to be able to buy the publicity necessary to win elections. This undermines our politics, as our so-called democracy is reduced to a rampant plutocracy. This is one of the main reasons why politics in this country has become so toxic – elections are no longer fought over policy issues but which side can inflict most damage on the other. To raise our politics out of the mire, more democratic and transparent ways of financing campaigns are required, such as limiting donations to small contributions at grassroots level to make elections more competitive. Sadly, at the moment, there seems little appetite to change the status quo. Potential changes in the pipeline will only worsen the situation. The current Tory Government wants to free the Boundary Commission from Parliamentary scrutiny so that power will rest solely in the hands of the executive, thereby making future changes to constituency boundaries less transparent. The role of the Electoral Commission, which is responsible for regulating the electoral system, is also under review. It currently has no teeth and is deliberately kept that way - the maximum fine for committing fraud in an election or referendum is a measly £20,000 per offence – and its powers are unlikely to be increased. Democracy is cheap in Britain today.
The rise of cynicism, particularly amongst young people, is another threat to democracy in Britain. With an unrepresentative FPTP system in which so many Parliamentary constituencies are ‘safe’ seats, voters can be forgiven for thinking that their votes do not matter. Only a relatively small number of constituencies are potential swing seats that are genuinely contested. To get people interested and for them to feel that their vote matters, there has to be a real choice. It is understandable that people feel cynical when they do not feel that their views are being represented. But opting out is not the answer. Those in power want people to be cynical and disengaged. They want to keep things as they are because the existing system works for them. To change our politics and make our democracy more representative and more accountable, everybody has to use their vote. If you care about climate change, the NHS, career opportunities, war and peace, equality, and poverty, you have to vote. You cannot just stand on the sidelines and moan. Speaking to college students in America in 2016, President Obama urged them “Don’t give away your power.” That applies here too. If you vote and encourage your friends to do the same, it might take time but things will change.
The sun setting over the Houses of Parliament. Photo by sborisov on 123RF.
Make no mistake, democracy is under siege in Britain today. It is clear that the British electoral system is no longer fit for purpose. Rather than giving voters a voice, the whole system is designed to stifle and manipulate the many in favour of the few. We need to find a way of making the system work for the many. This will only happen if everybody is prepared to invest their time and effort in making it better, by being informed and by casting their vote.
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