Should the UK use more referendums?

A referendum is essentially a 'yes or no' question, this is a form of direct democracy, it gives people the power. But is it truly democratic, and is it really giving the people ALL the power? Of course it doesn't give the people ALL the power, it just makes them believe they have all of the power, to keep peace and order. The democratic nature of referendums is questioned due to the fact it can be overruled by the government if they aren't happy with the outcome. This poses the question: should the uk use more referendums? 

If we use more referendums, doesn't it give the government more chance to overrule us, therefore leading to a higher possibility of riots and an unhappy population? Although this is a rare occasion the UK hardly ever see a referendum, would increasing the number of them just lead to an increase of partisan dealignment? If the government was to reverse the vote of the referendum, the party in power probably wouldn't be for much longer, I believe that many people would be signing a vote of no confidence petition if this was to happen.

Juxtaposing with the negative points of increasing the amount of referendums, they do give the population more of a voice than we usually receive, due to the fact it would be extremely controversial if the government reversed the results of a referendum, I believe that the populations outcome is pretty secure and binding. So therefore maybe more referendums would be a good thing for the UK? 16 and 17 year olds have recently been allowed to vote in some current referendums, this therefore increases the voting turnout because 16 and 17 year olds are generally keen to get involved, therefore increasing political participation. The most recent referendum was the Scottish referendum, about the independence of Scotland, here are some figures I got from an article: "75% of 16 and 17 year olds voted, compared with 54% of 18-24 year olds and 72% of 25-34 year olds". This clearly shows how referendums are beneficial, it clearly increases political participation. 

There are many other ways of getting our voice heard as civilians of the UK, such petitions, marches etc. But a referendum gives us a louder and clearer voice, whether they listen to us or not it becomes clear with what we want and what we don't. 

In conclusion, personally I believe that the UK should use more referendums. It allows our voices to be heard, and presents the population with a large amount of power. 

Is the United Kingdom truly democratic?

In the UK, we belong to a political system called a democracy. But to what extent is the UK truly democratic? The definition of the word democracy is: "a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives." 

Democracy essentially means power to the people, and the people having power should mean that there is no room for a dictatorship right? Wrong. We have a representative democracy, which means that in different constituencies we vote for someone to represent our area, we also vote for a representitive to be in complete power of the country this creates an illusion that we are living in a democratic country when really we are not. Why is this an illusion? It is an illusion because political leaders and parties read off their manifesto promising us as a country numerous things, but it means absolutely nothing! As soon as they are in power, they are in power for 5 years, and they are well aware of the fact that anything they had promised can be thrown out of the window and disregarded. This leaves us with the issue of an elected dictatorship, which we can do nothing about for another 5 years. Unless enough people come together in the country and sign a vote of no confidence, to vote in another party which could essentially do the same thing. 

Democracy in the UK is a vicious cycle, the people never truly do have the power. But our democracy used to be better... or was it perceived as better because people weren't as politically aware as they are in todays society? The participation in politics has dwindled over the past 30 years massively. In 1987  when Margaret Thatcher was prime minister, the election turn out was 75.3%, then the following election in 1992 John Major, the election turn out was 77.7%. Now in 2015, the election turn out was 66.1%, a massive drop of 11.6% which is a huge increase. My personal explanation for this is I believe that as a nation social media is a massive platform for politically aware people to get their voice heard, and the understanding of what a true democracy does not correlate with the 'democratic' system we are experiencing in todays society.

My argument is further supported with our voting system, we vote for policies not people, parties not political leaders, we vote in people to the house of commons, but not the house of lords. We can vote people in power but its hard to vote them out of power. We are given restrictions on our voice, that surely is infringement of a true democracy? Once it was said that democracy "will be successful in a classless society, with censorship and civil religion." Others argue that we should change our electoral system to proportional representation, maybe this would be more of an exact representation of the countries views. 

How can we make the country more democratic? By making voting compulsory? No, because we are then faced with politically unaware people voting, and therefore the outcome will not be an exact representation of what the population wants, due to carless uneducated votes. What if we change our democratic system to a direct one? Or would that just cause more chaos and confusion? In my eyes, the small amount of confusion for a while would be worth it in the long run. It would benefit the United Kingdom in the future, I think in order for the UK to be truly democratic that is a process that would take years, and may be intangible. But a direct democracy now would be a 'quick fix' in the grand scheme of things.

In conclusion the UK withholds a sense and illusion of democracy through brainwashing propaganda and jargon filled politicians, we are far off of being a truly democratic country.

What happened in the most recent UK election?

In the most recent general election which took place on the 7th of May 2015, it was not as straight forward as previous years may have arguably been. On the same day many local elections also took place. There were two stand out parties that were neck and neck before voting even took place: Labour led by Ed Miliband and the Conservatives led by David Cameron. This gave Labour confidence as expected, but their arrogance may have been what lost them their opportunity to govern the UK. Conservatives won the election after having been apart of a coalition government since 2010 with the Liberal Democrats. Winning 331 seats by the skin of their teeth, made a extremely smug Cameron and a resigning Miliband. The resignation of leaders in the general election seemed to be a common theme in the most recent UK election, with the resignation of Ed Miliband leader of Labour, Nick Clegg leader of the Liberal Democrats and Nigel Farage leader of UKIP.

The biggest shock of the most recent election was the SNP and the masses of seats they had won, the reason as to why this was such a shock was because of the result of the referendum. The outcome of the referendum was for Scotland to remain apart of the UK, even after all of the upheaval of them wanting to no longer be part of the UK they won many seats in the general election. They were definitely the underdogs of the general election this year.

Furthermore the Liberal democrats crashed and burned this year, due to their broken promise from their previous time in power, of the tuition fees being scrapped and then them increasing them almost 3 times as much. Arguably this is not their fault and circumstances were tough, but this definitely was one of the main reasons as to why they was not voted into power this time around.

UKIP. The panic this party caused when waves of support suddenly emerged made everybody believe that UKIP may have a chance at winning, but no, their pro-british, racist policies only gained them one seat this year.

In conclusion the general election this year was definitely one to remember and full of resignations.