Assess the Limitations of the UK Democratic System

In the UK voters choose an MP for their constituency. The parties with the majority of seats form a government. This government governs in and through parliament. The UK is under a Representative democracy system, in which representatives are elected to govern on behalf of the voters. It is linked to the idea of ‘government for the people’. It is often called liberal democracy as its distinctive features are: - Regular, free and fair elections, everyone gets the vote and competition between parties. There are obvious advantages and disadvantages and here we are going to assess the limitations of the UK democratic system. Although Representatives democracy had many superior points which give it advantages the actual base of it is not the purest democracy.

This means that direct democracy actually is the voice for the people as they themselves are making decisions based on their opinion. Because Representatives like the Prime Minister need to take account of the whole population, they make their own judgement on a decision which means they are generalising the opinion of the People. This also means that Britain cannot represent all of the people all of the time, and because a Representative may have to make and independent decision which is seen as not entirely democratic. An example of something which involves the people immediately with a political issue is Referendums. A referendum is a question, or a series of questions that the electorate is asked to vote on usually over important constitutional issues, as it is a form of direct democracy, it is directly from the people. There are advantages of this form of direct democracy; they provide an opportunity for direct participation in politics, thereby strengthening democracy. Some argue that voters take more of an interest in specific issues than in party politics generally. In addition, they show that the opinion of the people is valued and give government decisions a democratic legitimacy. Because our UK democratic system rarely involves referendums into the political spectrum this weakens the party. With the wider use of referendums you have a more legitimate authority over the people and also it shows that the People have a say in their rights and issues. Another problem of the UK democratic system is that the numbers of citizens do not take full part in the democratic process. The turnout of voters in the last election for the London Mayor and assembly was very low. Representative democracy would therefore encourage less political participation then direct democracy. Because it does not involve the people directly it does not encourage them to vote in General and local elections. Also, people who don’t enjoy politics will not be involved in the elections because they feel they are no role in the decisions made. For local government elections the turnout is particularly low and so undermines the legitimacy of the government. If UK introduced a compulsory voting system, this makes all people have to vote, so more people will be interested in politics and which party will govern the country better. An example of where compulsory voting has been introduces is in Australia, in which people must vote otherwise face a penalty. If this does not make people vote then they may be penalised, people will then want to be more involved in politics and to be more knowledgeable of it. This will enhance the democratic system and make it fairer. The main British electoral system is the common description of First-past-the-post.

This means that each constituency returns one Member of Parliament; each party may only nominate one candidate in each constituency. Voters have only one vote each. They choose their preferred candidate by means of the proverbial cross on the ballot paper. Whichever candidate wins the largest number of votes is declared elected. This is known as gaining a simple majority. It is not necessary for a candidate to achieve over 50% of the votes. One major feature of this system is that it discriminates in favor of some parties and against others. It converts votes into parliamentary seats in a totally disproportionate way. Like the Labor party, parties that gain the power, because they are able to concentrate its support in a large number of constituencies. As a whole, the First-past-the-post electoral system is often seen as unfair and making votes effectively unequal. This is a limitation of the UK democratic system; it could be improved by replacing the first-past-the-post system with a fairer more responsive system. In the UK its head is the monarchy, but they are unelected as well as the House of Lords, this is quite unfair as it does not give equal opportunities to all the people. If the House of Lords were elected it would give a chance to the working class of Britain to be more involved in Politics rather than the majority giving the Middle Class opportunities. It should be more equal therefore more legitimate. The elections for the London mayor and assembly take place every 4 years. Voters can only remove the mayor or assembly member at these elections. This means if the public disagree with what a mayor/assembly member says or what decisions they make they can only be removed every 4 years. This means too little extent can the public have accountability of their politicians. If the people disagreed with decisions, they should be able to start a forum in order to change this decisions or their London mayor, this makes it easier for people to have greater account of politics and politicians. Furthermore it is more likely that women and ethnic majority are underrepresented in the composition of the London assembly, House of Lords and Politicians altogether.

This has been criticised because this means the democratic system is contradicting its title, as it is not being fair to those in ethnic minorities and to women. The majority of the MP jobs are dominated by women and the only female British prime minister was Margaret Thatcher. This means the UK democratic system is not equal to all, if the UK system were more encouraging towards women and ethnic minorities to become involved in politics then only truly will you have the true opinion of the people from the range of people in Britain. In conclusion, the UK democratic system has limitations based on the representative democracy system. There are problems with every system, from the degree of accountability to representing the people accurately.

Even though Britain may have limitations it is still a strong democratic system, it does give equal rights to all and tries to represent the people as well as they can. There are free and fair elections and adults may vote without difficulty in a secret ballot. People are given the right to preserve their privacy and ethnic minorities are given the same rights as everyone else and there are no serious barriers to standing for office. As a whole the UK democratic system has both strengths and limitations.