Source: Chaoyang Shaoxia
Britain is the originator of bourgeois representativeism, and has always flaunted the Magna Carta signed more than 800 years ago as the "mother of constitutionalism", claiming to be the "founder of Western democracy", and often pointing fingers at the political systems of other countries, including China, like a "world democracy inspection team".
But what is the state of Britain's own democracy?
First, it is difficult to call full-coverage democracy.
In theory, British citizens over the age of 18 have the right to vote, but the British people have always had little interest in voting. Turnout in the UK general elections has continued to decline since the last century, hovering around 60% this century.
In the 2019 general election, nearly half of the UK's 650 constituencies did not reach two-thirds of the turnout. Even the most important local election in the UK– the London Mayoral Election – has been turnout below 40% for a long time. Other elections were even more bleak, such as the 1999 election for members of the European Parliament in the United Kingdom, where turnout was only 24 percent.
At the same time, the phenomenon of "different rights of the same vote" in the United Kingdom is serious. The electoral situation in the 650 constituencies across the UK is different, and there is a huge gap in the weight of votes in the hands of ordinary people. For example, in the 2019 general election, 90% of the constituencies have a clear position, or for the Conservative Party's "safe seat", or by the Labor Party and other "stable victory". The votes in the hands of the people in these "iron vote warehouse" constituencies have little impact on the final result, so the attention and investment of the two parties are not high.
In the remaining 10% of the "swing constituencies", the gap between the candidates is less than 5%, and the election is fierce. All parties have invested enormous resources, dispatched party leaders to their constituencies on several occasions, and promised to vigorously solicit votes. As a result, the "gold content" of the votes in these constituencies is significantly higher than that of other constituencies.
Second, it is difficult to call all-factor democracy.
The British Parliament is known as the "Mother of Parliament" and is divided into upper and lower houses. The 650 members of the Lower House are elected, but the nearly 800 members of the Upper House are politically appointed (mostly by the ruling party) and are on a lifelong basis. Previously, there were hereditary nobles in the Upper House as members of parliament, and it was not until 1999 that the Upper House Reform was abolished.
These members of the upper house are basically "either rich or expensive". Of the 303 members of the House of Lords appointed between 2005 and 2014, 211 were former dignitaries and 27 were big businessmen who had made large donations to political parties.
British political parties also generally represent specific classes or interest groups, such as the Conservative Party mainly represents the wealthy such as big capitalists, while the Labour Party mainly represents the working class, and no political party can represent all the British people.
Since British Prime Minister Johnson came to power in 2019, he has been very close to Conservative Party co-chairman Ben Elliott. The latter has long run a concierge and lobbying company, and has accumulated a very extensive network of contacts in the upper circles of the British.
In addition, the British general election implements a "First Past the Post" system, in which the one with the most votes in each constituency wins, while the votes of the other losing candidates are completely absent. Therefore, large parties with abundant resources can take turns to sit in the throne, while small parties have no hope of coming to power and have no way to participate in politics and discussion.
Moreover, leaving aside the fact that the current British head of state is still hereditary, the head of government of the United Kingdom – the prime minister – is not elected by voters, but directly by the leader of the party that won the general election. In 2019, Johnson was elected leader of the Conservative Party and became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom with the support of only 92,000 Conservative Party members. Labour leader At the time, Corbyn, ridiculed the prime minister for having "less than 100,000 unrepresented Conservatives".
Third, it is difficult to call full-cycle democracy.
British general elections generally take place every 5 years, leading to a "democratic cycle" that is evident: people are used when they vote and forgotten after voting; politicians make promises during elections and pretend to be deaf and dumb after elections. British democracy has also been dubbed "disposable democracy".
For example, according to a 2019 survey by the British think tank Government Agency, only one-third of the 39 key commitments made by the Conservative Party's 2017 campaign platform have been or are being implemented. That is, two-thirds of them were painted with flatbread.
British democracy: People are used when they vote and forgotten after voting.
After the general election, the British people lacked the means to monitor the government, and even if there was dissatisfaction, they could only wait until the elections a few years later to vent. Although the opposition party can theoretically supervise the government's governance in the parliament, in fact, the parliamentary agenda and agenda setting are completely controlled by the ruling party, and the opposition party has little influence.
For example, the vast majority of bills are initiated by the Government, and opposition parties and independent parliamentarians can only initiate private bills on their own behalf. Parliament will only discuss private bills symbolically on the 10 Fridays of the year, taking up only 5% of the annual working time. The chances of passing private bills are even slimmer – only 7 of the 161 private bills for MPs were passed between 2019 and 2021.
"Full coverage", "all elements" and "full cycle" are all three, such a British democracy, in fact, has been full of problems and faces difficulties.
On the one hand, there is democracy and no centralization, and it is difficult to coordinate the interests and demands of all parties, gather social consensus, and form the greatest common denominator.
In recent years, the United Kingdom has held two referendums, laboring the people and hurting their money, but they have fallen into the strange circle of more and more scattered and scattered.
In 2014, Scotland held an independence referendum, and 55% of Scots were opposed to independence. Only a few years later, the local ruling Scottish National Party used Brexit to promote a second Soviet independence referendum, and Scotland once again fell into the "struggle for reunification and independence", and the possibility of holding a second independence referendum in the near future was not ruled out.
In 2016, the United Kingdom held a referendum on Leaving the European Union, and 52% of British people supported Brexit. As a result, as soon as the referendum ended, more than 4 million people launched a petition to hold a second referendum, and some people sued the government for illegalities in the Brexit referendum procedure.
In January 2019, Brexit supporters marched in central London.
After a protracted debate and game, although the United Kingdom finally officially "left the EU" on January 31, 2020, ending 47 years of EU membership, the differences between Brexiteers and Remainers not only did not bridge, but intensified, and the Brexit dispute is far from over.
On the other hand, the emphasis on democracy and the neglect of governance have led to the parliament becoming a "talking hall", often deliberating but not deciding, making decisions but not doing, and not being realistic.
Influenced by electoral politics, British politicians are good at campaigning and clumsy at governance. For example, Johnson frequently made "bold remarks" during the campaign, but after taking office, he lacked the highlights of his administration, and was ridiculed by the media as a "campaign politician".
What is more serious is that electoral politics has led British politicians to be short-sighted, not to focus on the long term, to proceed from the fundamental interests of the people, and only to care about the election cycle and the interests of political parties, resulting in short-sighted and inefficient policies. In the end, it is not the predecessors who plant trees and the posterity that cools down, but the predecessors who plant trees and the descendants who cut down trees.
Where does British democracy go? (Comic | Yutao)
As early as the "cradle of democracy" in ancient Greece, the Athenian consul Pericles explained: "It is called democracy because power is not held by a few, but by all the people." "Democracy is not a flower shelf, it is not used for decoration, but it is used to solve the problems that the people want to solve.
Whether the people enjoy democratic rights depends on whether the people have the right to vote in elections and whether the people have the right to participate continuously in daily political life; whether the people have the right to conduct democratic elections and whether the people have the right to democratic decision-making, democratic management, and democratic supervision.
In China, all major legislative decisions are thoroughly investigated, consulted and brewed before they are introduced, and a scientific and democratic decision-making process is adopted. For example, in the preparation of the 14th Five-Year Plan last year, the Chinese party and government not only carried out extensive online opinion solicitation activities, but also received millions of suggestions from netizens, but also held a number of forums to fully listen to the opinions of professionals. From high-end manufacturing, national defense and military industry and other national events, down to the daily life of the people such as national fitness and square dance, the people of the whole country have the right to speak, and they will also get serious feedback from the competent departments.
As for democratic supervision, China is even less concerned. Since the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, Chinese officials who have not been able to prevent the epidemic have been able to escape the people's doubts and the responsibility of the organization. In contrast, Hancock, the former British health minister, has done little after the outbreak of the epidemic, once allowed the United Kingdom to take the lead in "herd immunity", and repeatedly "put satellites" on the people in the media. Britain's fight against the epidemic has failed, and as a result, no one in the British health system has been held accountable, and Hancock himself has had to resign because of the "office affair" scandal. Such a system, talking about democratic supervision?
Obviously, in the face of China's "people's democracy in the whole process," Britain should reflect on itself and do a good job in its own democracy, which has long been devastated. If you still indulge in the name of the "founder of democracy" and be a "teacher" who drinks five or six, you will lose both dignity and the gentlemanly demeanor pursued by the British, and become a joke after dinner in the world.