Democracy - help me out here!

Thanks growstuff, I like your analogy. I am of the opinion too that our parliamentary system is ill equipped to deal with social media and a more sophisticated and engaged electorate. I think we should have PR as it represents minorities more effectively; but getting a sitting government to introduce it is shades of turkeys and Christmas! At the moment FPTP is all we have got and I think your essay idea is a good one(!) for FPTP is open to abuse. For a start the referendum I think was not about Brexit but about David Cameron wanting to rid his party of a negative force within the Conservative Party. Change is afoot and I’m not sure if it’s good for remainers or leavers.

I haven't noticed our Parliamentary democracy keeping populism in check over the last 3 years.

Perhaps jura might explain again for us how direct democracy works in Switzerland. The process is far more rigorous than our shambolic referendum.

Welcome DidoLaMents and congratulations on being brave enough to dive in with a nice contentious subject! Love your name. Democracy means different things to different people, depending upon whether they are on the 'winning' side. This debacle of a referendum is an example of how democracry should not be conducted, it was poorly explained, poorly planned, hijacked by interest groups and its main purpose as far as I can understand it, was to finally calm the restless group of Tory MPs which became the ERG, but have been bubbling under since pre-Maastricht. This referendum was not to allow the electorate to decide whether they would like to remain in or leave the EU, it was to quell internal Tory party problems, and as a plan, it blew up in Cameron's face. There are some who voted to leave I am sure, with genuine researched views and made their decision accordingly, but too many were manipulated, believed the fake promises, refuse to listen now to anyone who doesn't back up their misguided vote and are now increasingly defensive as they realise they have been had. So, democratic it isn't, and having an unelected Rasputin in No10 flies in the face of 'taking back control'.

Sorry Callistemon I wasn’t ignoring you! I agree with your comment and AC’s alleged involvement - WMD document that took us to war. I also think any PM who steps down or is sacked should lead to a GE. The only time it’s appropriate is when a PM dies in office. I know the arguments not to, as we should vote for policy not personality but I think the last appointment is an object lesson in how personality must be uppermost because BJ was pretty scant on policy!

That's true Maizie :-(.

It's shown up many flaws in our version of parliamentary democracy.

Corbyn was also chosen by the Labour party members- twice! I didn't chose him, as I'm not a member, but I accept that is how leaders are chosen; it's in their rule book. However, I believe Gordon Brown, a former Prime Minister, was just chosen as a successor by Tony Blair, so no leadership election then.

We had almost 10 years of Labour government from 1997 but I didn't vote for them. However, that's how democracy works in this country. Also, Alistair Campbell was not elected but was Blair's main advisor. All political parties are the same, it's not just the Tories- sorry, the 'evil Tories', as you are obviously not a fan of them, Dido. I'm not a Tory either, by the way, but I believe they are the lesser of two 'evils'.

You raise some good points. One thing that strikes me is that no one voted for no deal or Dominic Cummings, democracy or no. The country is in uncharted waters and it's not feeling very democratic, whatever your understanding is of the term.

There is noting "fixed" about how democracy should work.

Nice bit of "whataboutifery" by the way.

growstuff 'I wouldn't want direct democracy because it supports populism. We'd have the biased media whipping up support for all sorts of ideas.'

I actually agree. Although in the case of this particular Direct Democracy- as least they have to provide factual, unbiased information before Refs, in cooperation with parties. And they are prepared to overturn Refs shown to be, even in a 'minor' way, won fraudulently. The Brexit Ref would have been overturned months, no, years- ago- due to all the proven irregularities, lies, biased info given, and outside inteference + illegal targetting- and this even though a Ref is binding- whereas it can only be advisory, by UK's official Laws.

One point Maizie- which makes me sympathetic to the Scottish situation- is that the French speaking part, which is a large but all the same a minority- is far too often just 'pipped at the post' - as the German Kantons (apart from the more open Basel, and at times Zurich) especially the very rural central ones, vote very conservatively, even in cohoots with the nationalist far right.

I agree about proportional representation being a way of more people's votes actually mattering, but with the mainly two party system and FPTP, no party in power is going to vote to introduce this. To those who use election statistics to back up the referendum result, the very important and essential difference is that we can overturn an election result every 5 years or so, and we have (hopefully) an effective opposition in the HoC to hold the governing party to task and control any excessive or unpopular actions. With this illegal and unconstitutional referendum, once it happens there is no going back, as a country we will be suffering for the actions of a very small number of the electorate for a very long time. This is truly undemocratic.

I sometimes think of party politics in the UK as an extremely long last set in tennis. One party has the advantage for a while, but the situation can quickly be reversed. Every five years we have a general election, which has the effect of rebalancing (hopefully). There's no chance of that with a binary referendum, even one which is entirely legal within whatever parameters have been set.

California has a limited version of direct democracy on certain matters. A few years ago, the people voted to reduce taxes. Almost at the same time time, they also voted to increase spending on some public services. Errmm … A government is needed to make balanced decisions, taking into account the majority of people and an evaluation of the likely consequences.

BTW, I haven't ticked off any examples of "undemocratic backstop" on my Brexit Bingo card in the last few days. Does that mean I haven't been paying attention or has Cummings decided it was a flop?

When Gordon Brown was appointed PM B Johnson gave a speech in the Hof C saying how undemocratic it all was, no one voted for him , and demanding an immediate election.

It appears that politicians are allowed to change their minds. They do it all the time.

It is only the voters who are not allowed to change their minds, especially the poor folk who realise that they were fooled into voting leave by the likes of Boris Johnson and now want the chance to stop brexit.

Hi Paddyann. Sorry taken a while to get back and answer your comment. Thank you for it and I understand your frustration. I believe that FPTP is dying and hope that reform will bring about PR. What we don’t want is the death throws of FPTP bringing about a Kleptocracy! (MaizieD we are back to the ancient Greeks again!) When you argue from the points you made, you make people say: ‘Well there are about 53.0 million English; 5.3 million Scots; 3.1 million Welsh and 1.8 million Northern Irish, so isn’t that right for a representative Parliament?’ But that is far too simplistic and we then get side tracked by dead ends like the West Lothian/English Question and then I may say what about the discrepancy between the North and South and what ever happened to the Northern Powerhouse??‍♀️. There we go then; Scots are mad at the English; the North have a go at the South and the Irish resent us all cos we may be screwing up their long sought after and hard won peace! Mo Mowlem would be doing her nut if she was still around! All this does is divide us more and more! And whilst we argue some unelected ‘dude’ is changing the political landscape! We should ask what do the English understand about living in Scotland? What do the Scots understand about being English, or Welsh? What do any of us understand of living in Northern Ireland? I believe in Subsidiarity, ‘..... the principle of social organization that holds that social and political issues should be dealt with at the most immediate (or local) level...’ Just because someone is in a minority doesn’t mean they give up their right to have influence over their political futures. Does not mean we cannot stand together in what is becoming a hostile and fragile world, does it?

I agree absolutely.

Look a little further afield and see what's happening in India and Pakistan. Both are supposed to be democracies, but minorities aren't being well-served.

Many people much more savvy than I have written about the flaws of democracy.

It must be blindingly obviously to anybody with a brain no bigger than a goldfish that a system which allows a minority of the electorate to "win" a referendum, keep a minority government in power and then to hand the top job to someone based on the preferences of a few thousand people, who then delegates operational details to somebody completely unelected - is a flawed system, however "legal" it is (putting aside for the moment any illegalities, which have not been insignificant). The system itself is undemocratic.

With reference to the numbers of English, Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish we're back to my original comment about two wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for lunch.

Woh! Quizqueen! Hang on... To quote the late great radio presenter/journalist Brian Readhead when accused of political bias by Nigel Lawson : ‘Do you think we should have a one-minute silence now, one for you to apologise for daring to suggest that you know how I vote?’?

Growstuff I missed your reply to Greta and interesting response to Jura2; I’m still finding my way round gransnet; but for me you have hit the nail on the head! That is exactly what I’m concerned about! Irrespective of how I voted in the referendum or who I support or don’t support in a GE; I’m disturbed by what is happening and the disregard for our imperfect political system. Your comment about Kashmir and the ongoing India/Pakistan border. Even your goldfish must be asking about the role of our ‘colonial forefathers’ in that mess and the unrest today! We do have a lot to answer for and these are the ‘days of the empire’ ‘make Britain great again’ that some wish to see return? Really???

Excellent post indeed growstuff. Would you mind if I used it?

Do as we say you plebs!

DLM welcome. When you have been on GN a little longer you will find that posts digress so please don't suggest we should stick directly to the OP or be critical of anyone going off on a tangent.

I think there are some great posts here so won't reiterate but I don't think anyone has commented on BJ deciding to put a presidential speech on FB. By doing so instead of being interviewed by the MSM he has become a dictator imo.

It is clear to me that revoking A50 at this stage would cause more division and that the only way to unite the UK again is to give us facts and allow us to choose the way forward.

DidolaMents

The answer is very simple.

Democracy to many it only democracy ' IF it suits them'.

pogs thats not true ,in Democracy every voice should have the chance of being heard .Thats not the case in Westminster .When London has more MP's than the whole of Scotland there is never a way OUR MP's will get heard.I would like them to come home and work here for Independence ,UDI if WM wont"allow" a referendum.Though quite why we need permission as the only partner in the treaty of union I have no idea.They didn't ask our permission ofr the Brexit debacle .Rules for them and different ones for everyone else?