Thursday

IS THE UK DEMOCRATIC?

The UK is democratic

> We know that the UK is a democracy because all elections in the UK are free from bias and interference. All adults can vote without difficulty in a secret ballot. The state has made sure that there are legitimate ways to cast a vote (such as postal and proxy votes) if people genuinely cannot get to their polling station on election day.

> There are no major barriers to standing for an elected office in the UK, unless you come from a group that might have compromised our democracy.

> We do have state-sponsored media, but these aim to be impartial and they have many free, commercial rivals.

> In the UK, we have freedom of expression, thought and association; it is only limited in certain key ways so that people’s rights and sensitivities are not trampled on.

> We have a pluralist society that enables parties, trade unions and pressure groups to operate freely within the confines of the law.

> Government is bound by the rule of law, and we have an impartial judiciary which can ensure that this rule of law is maintained to a high standard.

> Since 1929, when women became able to vote on equal terms with men, we have had general political equality for all.

> Our government is responsible to parliament, where we freely elect our representatives at least every 5 years. On polling day, parliamentary sovereignty returns to the people of the UK.

> Political corruption is rare and, when it does occur, such as with the Aitken and Archer scandals, the offenders are imprisoned to send out the signal that it will not be tolerated.

> Despite the recent trend towards the use of special advisers by Downing Street and by individual ministers, our civil service is still largely neutral.


The UK is not democratic

> Our first-past-the-post electoral system is often seen as unfair.

> Both our head of state and the second chamber are unelected.

> There are no significant limits on the government of the day – we have no codified, written constitution to bind our elected representatives.

> With a large majority, the party that is in government is supremely powerful and has the ability to introduce legislation that is not in its manifesto. This means that it can take policy actions that it is not mandated to implement, such as when Gordon Brown gave control over interest rates to the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England in May 1997.

> Our prime minister is leader of the majority party in parliament and is not separately elected.

> The powers of the prime minister are wide-ranging and there are very limited controls on his or her extensive powers of patronage.

> Since the late 1980s, considerable power has been transferred from the hands of accountable, permanent staff to unelected quangos.

> Since 1997, we have had a government in the UK with a large majority that has exercised an excessive control over parliament.

> We do not have separation of powers between the head of state, the executive and the judiciary, and our citizens do not enjoy an entrenched Bill of Rights.

> Our government is secretive and has resisted the introduction of an extensive Freedom of Information Act.