Are Pressure Groups Becoming More Powerful?

710 Words3 Pages
Are pressure groups becoming more powerful? (24 Marks) A pressure group is an organised group of people, who attempt to influence the legislature passed by parliament without actually selecting an electoral candidate. There are several different means by which pressure groups can seek public attention, whether it be protests, marches or lobbying. In the UK there is some concern as to whether pressure groups are too powerful and become undemocratic. One of the factors to this power is the many ‘access points’ to government. This means that a pressure group can lobby many different people and places to have their message heard. This could be done in Parliament, Debates, the Supreme Court or even to the Prime minister. This means that a pressure group can have an impact in the many different levels of government business. There are several examples of lobbying successes in the UK, pressure group Amnesty International participated in protests after five men suspected of conspiring to commit terrorism had had their bank accounts blocked and assets frozen, without any hard evidence they were terrorists. The Supreme Court later stated that this was a breach of human rights. This example shows that pressure groups can have massive influence over the many levels of government by bringing a case in front of the Supreme Court. If it wasn’t for the pressure groups, these cases would not have been brought to the Supreme Court and the ruling could not have happened. Another factor contributing to their overwhelming power is that members of Parliament are not policy specialists. MP’s will know limited facts about certain issues and will depend upon outside sources to give them their information. This could be from many sources but the main source would be pressure groups. These groups are a minority of people who are representing their view as if it were the majority. This
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