THE FULL STORY

An anonymous contributor shares their realisation about the British Parliamentary System

I will never forget the day I had this epiphany. I was standing in a muddy field in Parliament Square, fresh after an autumnal rain. It was at the end of a march for ceasefire in Gaza, when Jeremy Corbyn’s words rang through the huge speakers to the hundreds of thousands that had gathered to hear him.

Corbyn said something like, “76% of people in the UK are urging the government for a ceasefire.” I was puzzled and shocked by this news. The British government had gone against what the majority of it’s citizens wanted in favour of a small group of people running the government.

This is the day I realised that the British parliamentary system is undemocratic and set out to find out why this is the case. While there are many positives to the Parliamentary system, I list five reasons why the British government has not supported a ceasefire, using examples of policies and parliamentary systems that demonstrate this.

1. The ‘whip’ system forces MPs to support their leader

According to the ‘whip‘ system, MPs must vote in accordance to what their leader votes. If they don’t, they can have the ‘whip’ taken from them. This explains why many MPs voted against the ceasefire in parliament even though they had been speaking for for it beforehand. Forcing people in your political group to agree with you ensures that the people at the head of the political party cannot be challenged and gives too much power to one person. This is undemocratic.

2. The Primer Minister’s power to call elections

Due to the Prime Minister’s power to call elections as and when they see fit, the UK has seen a series of unelected Prime Ministers in the last decade from Theresa May to Rishi Sunak, the list goes on. The fact that 75 million people in the UK have to live with a leader who ‘represents’ them when they never had a say in electing him, is completely undemocratic.

3. The power to decide what passes through the house of commons

How does Parliament enact change? This usually happens when a Member of Parliament proposes a new law or change to an existing one in the form of a bill and it is then subsequently debated and approved in each House of Parliament plus Royal Assent. Alternatively, a member of the public can create a petition which has to be signed by 100,000 people before it can then be discussed in Parliament. However, the government has the final say on what passes through the House of Commons.

4. The power to appoint new lords

After a bill is discussed and voted on in the House of Commons, it is then moved to the House of Lords to be discussed. However, the House of Lords, are a group of individuals who have never been voted in by the British public. Therefore, it is undemocratic for unelected people to have a say in what the British public does or does not do.

5. Lobbying

One of the most egregious abuses of power by the British government, is that it allows donors to give money to political parties, without scrutinising their credentials. For example, we have to look no further than the recent claims that a donor to the Conservative party, who has made racist statements was afforded the opportunity to do so. Within the same week, it was revealed that the Labour Friends of Israel had paid 70,000 to MP David Lammy. He subsequently abstained from voting for a ceasefire. This form of lobbying thus perpetuates inequalities in society.

Without changes being made to the parliamentary system, we can see more government-backed human rights violations on the horizon, at a time when inequalities such as the gap between rich and poor around the world have never been so stark.