The debate about the current political goings on in the UK has caused the word "democracy" to be thrown around a lot, on twitter and elsewhere. The intention of this post is to think about democracy a bit more, and encourage readers to do so as well.
It is easily seen that most arguments about democracy are heavily influenced by what the arguers hope will be the outcome of the system of democracy they favour. In Scotland (where I live) there are those who are all in favour of referendums if they think they might lead to separating Scotland from the rest of the UK, but against them if they think they will lead to the UK leaving the EU. Those most in favour of proportional representation were supporters of the Liberal Democrats; there are arguments in favour of PR, but it cannot be denied that PR would almost certainly increase the number of Lib Dem MPs. Similarly there are arguments in favour of our "first past the post" system, but they were always put most strongly by Conservative and Labour MPs whose parties have often won power, and all the fruits of office, despite not winning anything like 50% of the voters.
So it is in Britain right now. Those who argue that the result of the 2016 referendum as an indisputable democratic decision which must be adhered to, otherwise democracy will be betrayed are those who are in favour of leaving the EU. Those who argue strongly for a Peoples' Vote - arguing that circumstances have changed, that we are now better informed, and that it is surely very democratic to let the people vote - are generally in favour of remaining in the European Union. Most of those arguing are surely sincere in their belief in democracy. But equally they cannot help having their arguments about democratic systems affected by their hopes about the short term results of their preferred system.
I am bound to remember what George Orwell said after 1945: The word democracy is now used by politicians to mean whatever they want it to mean. So it has become meaningless, and ought not to be used any more in political discourse. (No doubt he was thinking partly about totalitarian states that called themselves "The Peoples' Democratic Republic of..." but we can all think of many many examples around the world today where regimes of which we might strongly disapprove can claim to be democratic.
I have no doubt at all that referendums are bad democracy, even if occasionally they are the least worst option. I wrote a blog about this in 2014, long before the present political troubles manifested themselves. Nothing that has happened since 2014 has caused me to change my mind. In fact, given the paralysis of our decision-making processes and the deep divisions in the country I would say that my opposition to referendums is stronger than ever. Here is the link to this blog-post
https://georgehharris.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-truth-about-referendums.html
My other relevant writings on the subject are available as "lectures" on Kindle. They only cost about a pound.
Democracy can, of course, go horribly wrong. The opponents of democracy in the nineteenth century (and sometimes in the ancient world, come to that) argued that unscrupulous politicians who were clever at winning votes, prepared to lie and to cheat, might use democracy to get and wield power for their own selfish or terrible reasons. There are many examples of this sort of thing happening. The most famous, I suppose, is the rise to power of Hitler and the Nazis. It should never be forgotten that over 60% of Germans never voted Nazi in a free election. But the system allowed the Nazis to get power.
I have written about this here:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hitlers-Power-Grade-History-Lectures-ebook/dp/B007Y6LF5M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1544369816&sr=8-1&keywords=Hitler+harris
In the UK the democratic system we use was not created by war or revolution but evolved slowly. It has not been without faults, no doubt, but it has on the whole worked pretty well.
I have written about this here:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Development-Democracy-Britain-1850-1918-Grade-ebook/dp/B007Z5PU2G/ref=pd_sim_351_6?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B007Z5PU2G&pd_rd_r=448ca993-fbc8-11e8-9f9b-236f32596e2b&pd_rd_w=N60Sd&pd_rd_wg=ZPGiO&pf_rd_p=1e3b4162-429b-4ea8-80b8-75d978d3d89e&pf_rd_r=FTGND0NB16E3CQXBCTB6&psc=1&refRID=FTGND0NB16E3CQXBCTB6
The first section is not about UK history but about democracy as an idea. It points out several things that are necessary to democracy as well as votes by themselves. These include the rule of law, and a free and honest press. There is more to the lecture than this.
What do I think should happen next in the UK? Well, I do not think my opinion is worth much. After the Independence referendum in Scotland in 2014 I wrote an optimistic blog-post called "the morning after". I think it might apply to our present situation with the EU. Here it is:
https://georgehharris.blogspot.com/2014/09/september-19th-morning-after.html
In general I would like to see almost all MPs (a few seem to be hopeless cases) use their intelligence, their experience, and their public-spirited goodwill to put their personal ambitions on one side, and their party squabbles on one side. Instead they should think hard about what is in the best interests of their constituents, and of the country, and work to achieve that. This would be good democracy (after all they were all elected more recently than the EU referendum) and is the way our system is supposed to work.
