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.
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