Supporters would argue that referendums should be used in the UK. This is for many reasons, such as allowing the public to have control over decision making. In doing so, making that decision is far more representative because it would be the popular choice, therefore making it far more legitimate. Also, because they’re secret ballots it means the voters can be non-partisan furthermore granting the final outcome to be a more justifiable choice due to f the vast amount of voters. In addition, referendums are a form of direct democracy, consequently giving the public control over decision making.
Referendums have become more widely used since 1997 and have helped to decide controversial policies. The advantages of referendums are large; however there are also a number of disadvantages. Referendums can be used in many ways. For example when the government is split on an issue a referendum can resolve that issue without destroying government itself. This means that referendums therefore can prevent disputes in government and secure a consensus decision so wider use of them would ensure that the number of disputes is reduced even further.
It has support from many political parties who are committed to its success and is seen as a good way to make government more efficient. However, it is very costly and many feel it is the first step towards the break-up of the United Kingdom and an independent Scotland. The debate is still on-going as to what the next steps are for the Scottish Parliament; however I feel that we are a long way off becoming an independent
Arguably the elected MPs are the reason that a representative democracy flourishes with the elected MPs superseding the knowledge of the public. However, it could be argued that MPs have the interest of toeing the party line, or even acting in their own interests rather than the constituent’s interests. Nevertheless, MPs are learned individuals who would make the correct decisions with the interests of their party, their constituency and themselves, effectively fulfilling the role of an MP. The government within a representative democracy is advantageous as it is held to account for its
Firstly, a codified constitution would clarify the nature of the political system to citizens of the state. Most British citizens do not understand the concept of the constitution, nor what the UK constitution entails. It is therefore an argument that having a codified constitution would raise public awareness and support for the government would grow. It would also enable the public and people in government to view the constitution whenever necessary for matters such as court cases, etc. This would encourage public involvement in politics and act as an improvement to our democratic society.
Mayoral reforms have also gone far enough as many as 16 cities now have mayors in office concentrating on better representing their people. There is still however many things, which need to be reformed by parliament and the government such as Human Rights Act, because they are in place in the UK as more of a caution instead of an actual legislation and judges can not even annul legislations that are in breach of the HRA they can only send the case to legislation to parliament where it will be possibly changed. Electoral systems are also an important factor that has not been reformed far enough, because if the electoral system is faulty then people will not get the representation they
Each state has party meetings at which a nominee is selected to go to the national convention where the official candidate is selected. This could be improved by deliberately trying to get more people involved in the state nomination process. In this way the people can become more involved in choosing the nominee. If the nominee is more popular the Electoral College will be less likely to end up selecting the candidate with the least approval since the candidate will be someone who the people already have chosen. So one interesting possibility for Electoral College reform is to educate the voters more clearly and involve them in the process earlier on.
The Lords has also become more legitimate since the reforms because it’s influence has increased, the Lords are now looked to by the Commons to see what they think of what the government is doing more and more. They scrutinise the government’s decisions and make suggestions and changes to policy. More and more often the Lords reject or request changes to legislation from the Commons which most of the time the Commons agree with or work on – this highlights how effective and influential the Lords are. c) How successfully does Parliament perform its representative functions in modern Britain?
Since 1997 there have been many constitutional reforms from the Labour Government to the recent coalition government, these reforms have changed the UK political system quite dramatically; these reforms may have increased our democracy but have also created new problems which have to resolved through Parliamentary debate. The main Constitutional reform which has been ongoing through the Labour and Coalition government, however the Coalition seem less keen, is the reform on devolution of Powers to Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland. Scotland and Northern Ireland were granted with Primary powers of legislation meaning they can create legislation on a variety of different matters such as Health and Social services and Law and Order, this gave Scotland and Northern Ireland much more independence and power to run their own nations, Wales was only granted secondary powers meaning they can alter legislation but not create. This devolution was in response to referendums held in the Scotland, Wales and NI and there have also been calls to have complete independence from the UK however the referendum held on this matter returned a NO vote. This devolution however has raised some issues which seem hard to solve for example the West Lothian Question creates a problem n which Scottish MP’s can vote on English Laws but English MP’s cannot vote on Scottish Laws.
First we will take a look at the positive outcomes for citizens and society as a whole if this type of program was set up. First citizens would have more say in the process of laws being decided and may actually help in the process since many government officials do not have the time or resources to go over every page in the laws they are reviewing or signing in. Also citizens would have more control over something they may completely disagree with, for example the recent decisions to insert more stimulus money towards the economy would more strongly be rejected by a citizen based vote than a Democratic majority based Congress. Also a system like this would bring our system closer to a federalist based system on which our founders wanted our society to be and would take away some control of our government branches and would give states even more say in crucial decision making processes. This would make it much more difficult for governments to grow and enact more control over its citizen's daily lives, issues and