“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” – Alice Walker
(This is an extended version of an article that previously appeared in The National. You can throw me a tip to support this blog here.)
Given the audience likely to read this column, the statement “UK democracy is broken” isn’t going to feel uncontroversial or even particularly objectionable, but it is one that is being forced into sharp relief by the ongoing UK General Election campaign. We’re are all, regardless of our political leanings, being ill served by it.
This column started with a thought around the claims that the UK Labour Party are eyeing the potential of winning a “supermajority” after next Thursday with the loudest complainants of such a result being those in conservative circles. Understandably so as it would mean Labour winning a majority so large that they can’t possibly be challenged by the Opposition and so large that they don’t even need to worry about a rebellion on the back benches or the inevitable trickle of by-elections triggered by scandal, illness and the march of time threatening to flip the balance of power.
The Common Green 