‘Our democracy is on the ballot’
By Shaun Roberts, Director of Campaigns and Digital, Unlock Democracy
“Our democracy is on the ballot. It is only as strong as our willingness to fight for it. Let us vote to protect our democracy in November.”
That’s what Kamala Harris and the Democrats told voters last year on their way to defeat in the 2024 election. Looking at some of the things going on in the US right now, you might think they were not wrong to say that.
But as an electoral strategy, it didn’t work, even though one poll showed that 76% of Americans agreed that democracy was under threat.
Perhaps the reason for this was revealed by another question in the same poll which showed nearly half of voters felt American democracy does not do a good job of representing the American people.
Put simply, why fight to save something that isn’t working for you?
This feeling of democracy not working as it should is not confined to the US. We see it here and across Europe. Trust in politics and institutions is at an all-time low. Almost everywhere, we see a steady rise in authoritarian populism, often fuelled by dissatisfaction with how democracy is working today.
So what do defenders of democracy here in the UK do about it? First, we need to acknowledge a core truth – the damage done to trust in our democracy is a seriously big problem. To make democracy great again, we need some seriously big changes.
The most fundamental of these changes is changing the UK’s electoral system, so that people get what they vote for. Seats in Parliament should match the votes cast by the citizens.
Nothing undermines democracy and trust more than people not getting who they vote for. The people should decide representation in Parliament, not have their will distorted and warped by an outdated electoral system. If a person went into a shop and asked for eggs and were given cabbages instead, they wouldn’t take it. Why is it we put up with a voting system that consistently does the same thing?
Changing the electoral system is just the start. A second clear area for change is getting big money out of our politics. One person, one vote is at the core of a democracy, but there’s an increasing suspicion that millions of pounds in donations buys more influence than votes.
A poll conducted for Unlock Democracy found that more than four times as many people felt that party donors had more say over government policy than ordinary voters.
This can’t go on. Politicians on all sides can claim as much as they like that they are not influenced by large donations or expensive freebies and gifts, but voters are not buying it. Power that should lie with voters has been transferred away to big donors and it’s the rotten political system that has allowed it to happen. We have to get big money out of our politics.
The third area is the House of Lords which simply shouldn’t exist in a modern political system. The Government is rightly removing the remaining hereditary peers, effectively completing the 1998 Lords Reform. But that will still leave us with an unelected, wildly unrepresentative, wholly appointed chamber deciding on the laws of our land. PMs can continue to appoint party donors and their cronies as lawmakers. It’s time for an elected or part-elected second chamber.
These three changes enjoy strong public support. They involve hardly any cost to the taxpayer. All it takes is political will and a desire to make our democracy work better for voters.
Making votes match seats, getting big money out of politics and abolishing the House of Lords would be transformational for our democracy. It’s the shot in the arm our democracy desperately needs. It’s how we stop the UK potentially slipping towards authoritarianism.
It’s how we make democracy great again.
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