DEMOS

Should the United Kingdom become a democracy?

The Tomorrow Project’s paper Will people give up on democracy? (December 2007) states:

“There is mounting concern about disillusionment with politics, reflected in a reluctance to vote. At 60%, the turnout in the last general election was only just above the 59% in 2001, which was the lowest for any general election since 1918.”

As chair of the Labour Party, Hazel Blears referred last year to a ‘democratic time bomb’. At the previous general election, only 37% of young people voted. They saw today’s electoral system as woefully outdated, she said.

Gordon Brown has spoken of the need to improve participation in politics. Government is examining how to make it easier to vote (for example, by holding elections at weekends) and how to involve more ordinary people in political decisions (through citizen juries, for instance).

Changing the method of voting is like rearranging the deck-chairs on the Titanic. The cause of the problem is the absence of democracy.

The word democracy derives from the Greek dēmokratia (δημοκρατία) (literally, rule by the people).

We live in a country where only two parties have a real chance of forming the government, those parties offer policies which the electorate is unable to distinguish, and voters have the opportunity to choose one of the parties every four-five years. Politics exhibit word games and point-scoring which reinforce voters’ apathy.

Ministers and civil servants decide how the country is run largely regardless of public opinion. 646 people who cannot represent the varied views of thousands of constituents travel and sit together to watch the Cabinet’s will become law. Politicians spend billions as we spend tens, but the billions they spend are ours, and we have no control over that expenditure.

Therefore we live in an oligarchy, a form of government where political power effectively rests with a small elite segment of society. (The word oligarchy is from the Greek words for "few" (ὀλίγον óligon) and "rule" (ἄρχω arkho)).

Voters know this. “‘Voting doesn’t make much difference’ appears to have been one reason for the low turnout in recent general elections. Labour seemed highly likely to win and, especially in 2001 and 2005, both the main parties seemed to offer much the same, despite the rhetoric. ‘Why bother to vote?’ was a natural response. In a 1987 survey, 5% of voters thought that there was not much difference between the Conservative and Labour parties. In 1997 22% took that view, while in 2001 the figure was 43%. Those who thought there was not much difference were 17% less likely to vote.” (Tomorrow Project, Will people give up on democracy?)

Voters are offered the same package on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. In the absence of more customised approaches, voter disenchantment is likely to grow. ‘None of these parties represents my views, so I won’t vote for any of them.’

In an appearance before Parliament in January, 1766, Prime Minister William Pitt stated: "The idea of a virtual representation of America in this House is the most contemptible that ever entered into the head of a man. It does not deserve a serious refutation. The Commons of America, represented in their several assemblies, have ever been in possession of the exercise of this their constitutional right, of giving and granting their own money. They would have been slaves if they had not enjoyed it."

The citizens of the United Kingdom are in a similar situation today. Politicians spend billions as we spend tens, but the billions they spend are ours, and we have no control over that expenditure. We have virtual representation through a single Member of Parliament who cannot possibly present our individual wishes nor influence the Government to follow them.

Simon Howard of the Sunday Times quotes from a book on causes of the French revolution in the Sunday Times on 18/11/07: “The ruling elite had become arrogant and self-obsessed, with little daily contact with the reality of the people. Furthermore, the elite lived in a world of their own, closeted from the live of the population and, most dangerously, had lost the trust of the middle classes.”

Our political system will be seriously at risk over the next two decades as more and more people switch off from politics.

Making government work

As the 1999 Modernising Government White Paper pointed out, joined-up government is the key to improving public services. “To improve the way we provide services, we need all parts of government to work together better. We need joined-up government. We need integrated government.”

In interviewing or working with 84 Departments, Agencies and local authorities, I have found agreement that joined-up government is key to the delivery of excellent public services but that people do not know what it means or how to achieve it.

The answer is democratic and systematic alignment – using wiki to harness the power of mass collaboration within a framework which makes the collaboration productive, thereby closing the gap in social aspiration.

The wiki model could create real rather than virtual democracy. The disfranchisement of our oligarchic political system could be replaced by a dynamic democracy harnessing the power of mass creativity. This is a far cry from ineffective epetitions or webchats. Only those who chose not to participate would be disfranchised, but their disfranchisement would be voluntary rather than involuntary as at present.

To avoid democracy leading to chaos with unmanageable volumes of diverse opinions on what should be done, we would enable productive collaboration by providing a framework within which people can express opinions, and a mechanism for creating the agreed outcomes from available resources.

So there are two aspects to joined-up government:

• A joining-up of politicians, civil servants and the electorate – democratic alignment
• A joining-up of money and outcomes – systematic alignment.

The reason why countries like India have the quota system is more to do with political interests than development. Indian politics is primarily based on a caste-class distinction, whereby political parties, in order to gain votes, talk not about developmental policies, but existing religious divides.
The quota system, in this case, helps each political party gain ground with their representative set of voters. The government in power sets aside a percentage of seats in medical/engineering colleges for example, hence ensuring votes from minorities in the subsequent elections. Needless to say, this has a long term crippling effect on the economy, especially because this system does not support a merit based entry into professional streams.
Having said that, the qouta system would probably be more beneficial if it was applied at a primary/secondary school level, in private educational insitutes. The schools run by the government are in a bad shape, with fewer qualified teachers willing to be on their payroll, resulting in poor standards of education.