How far had Britain become a democracy by 1928?

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How far had Britain become a democracy by 1928?

Britain aimed to become a democratic country throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. By 1928, a democracy was very close to being achieved. For a democracy in Britain, there had to be universal suffrage, where every man and women have the right to vote regardless of class. Also a secret ballot must be in place to prevent corruption. Equal sizes of constitutions need to be enforced, with regular elections and elected members of government. In a democracy, the voters must have civil rights, such as freedom of speech and the right to stand in elections. There were a number of reforms that preceded the 1928, some more progressive than others.

In the early nineteenth century, Britain was very undemocratic. It was only the very rich and upper class men who were eligible to vote. Middle and lower classes had no representation and consequently no say in how the country was run. This was partly due to the fact that the members of Parliament were not paid, again in only the very rich being able to stand for elections. The House of Lords was the same, the only way of becoming a Lord was to inherit the title and position, making the House of Lords a very exclusive and conservative House. At this time, a severely small percentage of the population controlled British politics.

Other problems in the early nineteenth century included the open voting. The fact that there was no secret ballot made it possible for candidates to bribe the voters. It was thought to be honourable to vote in the open. Pocket and Rotten boroughs were very common. Pocket boroughs were situations in which the MP standing was also the landlord. In this way, the MP could threaten his tenant voters with eviction if they were not to vote for him. Rotten boroughs were situations where the MP represented no one, as the boroughs were completely uninhabited. There were no voters to oppose the MP, therefore the success was inevitable. Some Rotten boroughs were even partly covered by the ocean. There were no regular elections, no limits on how much an MP could spend on his campaign, and little or no representation for the ever-growing industrial towns. Britain was far from democracy in the early nineteenth century.
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This began to change by means of reform under the Liberal government. The first of these was the 1832 great reform act. Its main progression was the passing of suffrage to some of the middle class. It abolished rotten and pocket boroughs through the process of redistributing constituencies and allowing more representation for the bigger cities. Eight extra MPs were given to Scotland to represent the cities. The number of voters in Britain had increased slightly to 653,000, leaving twenty million people without the vote. British politics had made a move in the right direction, although the act ...

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