Marie O’Regan 12 CWA
How Democratic is the UK?
Democracy is a difficult notion to define, but as a generalisation and an accepted definition it is the people’s right to choose, and the right to say how the country is run. Democracy falls into numerous categories and comes in many different forms. When power is in the hands of the population as a whole and political decisions are made themselves, this is known as direct democracy, this style of democracy stems from the Athenian system. A Present day example of a direct democracy in the UK is a referendum. Another type is a representative democracy; in this case citizens will elect representatives to make decisions for them and the responsibility is handed over to the representative to make decisions for the country. Liberal democracy’s are today known as representative democracy’s and the representatives are accountable to the electorate.
The UK is a parliamentary democracy, the government and representatives are intermingled meaning that the UK does not have separation of powers, meaning that the executive, legislative and judicial courts all work together unlike the American Presidential system which could create a lack in communication.
In an evaluation of the UK’s democracy points can be made which support the idea that the UK is much more a democratic country, however many arguing factors disagree with this. In the UK everybody over the age of 18 and without a criminal record can vote free of charge, this entitles citizens to a say in the way the country is being run. Citizens have the ability to vote a particular party into power to run the country for the following four years, however whatever policies that party have been put forward for them to be voted into power will not definitely stay the same, possibly due to the fact that Britain has an uncodified constitution, consequently making it reasonably assessable to make new laws. Accordingly a citizen does have democracy in being able to vote the party of their choice into power to run the country, however it would be for the following four years and a party’s policies have the ability to drastically change within four years. The civil service do remain largely neutral, which is a very democratic factor. In Britain there is freedom of speech, expression, thought and association, this is of course within legal restrictions, this factor makes Britain a democratic country, however just how effective is the speech made by a citizen on the entire country. In the UK media is free, the papers can print exactly what they like, they have the ability to make people believe exactly what they read, even if it is not true, in a way this is democratic but the majority of what is printed is in biased prose and giving the public an education from an opinion not fact. It is said that there is political equality to all, and indeed if you want to join a political party there is nothing stopping you, however it is highly unlikely that you would find somebody sitting in parliament who is from the lower working class and uneducated background, other than that there is no serious barrier to standing for office. It is also true that pressure groups are free to operate, only if they are legal, however, the government will ensure that pressure groups do not become so powerful they steal the governments legitimacy. It is also true that government is bound by the rules of the law, however as earlier mentioned the government can create new laws quite easily due to the fact that the constitution is uncodified. It is also true that political corruption is very rare; this is due to the fact that the government has such legitimacy in the country. All of the above factors are democratic features of the UK government (unless stated otherwise).
