How democratic is the UK political system?

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How democratic is the UK political system?

Britain is a representative democracy and the British political system shows factors of being both democratic and undemocratic.

In the UK our elections are typically held within 5 years of the previous election and are free from corruption and violence. The outcomes of the elections are always considered fair and the changeover between governments is quick and painless. Everyone over the age of 18 is allowed to vote apart from in certain circumstances such as the person being in prison. However, the British electoral system is based on the “First past the post” system, which some say is undemocratic due to the problems of over and under representation whereby the proportion of seats a party gains is not equivalent to the proportion of votes. An example of this was in 1983 when the Liberal Democrats gained 3.5% of the seats when they gained 25.4% of the votes.

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Another undemocratic element of Britain’s governmental system is that there is no written constitution. This means that, in theory, the government are free to pass any legislation as long as they have the majority in parliament which could be easily achieved if the party has a greater number of seats. This means there is no safeguard for laws that can be altered or new ones that could be created. This can be seen as very undemocratic as the government therefore have too much power.

A two–party system is a system where two  political parties dominate  in nearly all  at every level of government. Some people have suggested that ...

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