Democratic Deficits In British Politics

Abstract

Progressive political reforms are a constant process in every democratic nation. Britain has been reforming its political system into a more democratic one since the beginning of the twentieth century. Britain enjoys a representative democracy as a pillar of its political system. Representative democracy is a political process whereby people “freely” choose their representatives to enact the policies they believe in. One of the components of this mechanism is the free and fair electoral system by which people voice their choice of representatives. In Britain, First Past the Post (FPTP) is the electoral system used to elect Members of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons. Though FPTP is considered as a simple plurality system, it still creates discrepancies that contradict the principles of representative democracy. This article traces some of the controversies that surround First Past the Post and causes it to be a deficit in the British political system. Furthermore, democratic reforms are still confronted by long lasting political traditions. Indeed, Britain still maintains a culturally rooted tradition manifested through the House of Lords. This article discusses the position of the House of Lords, an unelected chamber in British parliament in the twenty-first century, in order to situate it within the framework of representative democracy.