British democracy is dying and if you think otherwise then I’ve got some bad news for you. Although democracy has been a value upheld by this country since the early 1900s, it has never truly been representative of the whole British population, and in more recent years has become even less so. There is a lack of democracy within both parliament and thus the media after all the government does control the media.
For a start, does parliamentary democracy even exist? Considering that according to the House of Commons Libary in 2018, only 52, or just over 8% of Members of the House of Commons were non-white. So, how can the government claim to be representative of all British people, if there are over 9 million non-British people living in the UK? Not to mention the lack of LGBTQ+ voices. Parliament is dominated by an elite group of privately educated white men, who have no first-hand experience of what it is like for lower-working class or working-class people that make up over 60% of the British population. According to the Hansard Society, barely a third of voters trust MPs “to act in the interests of the public.”
Now let’s get to the root of the problem, our voting system. First-past-the-post, a true democratic deficit with no place in the modern world. You see, a minority overruling the majority completely undermines the idea of a democracy, yet it is a common occurrence when using first-past-the-post. The candidate who receives the most votes in each constituency wins, even if they did not receive a majority of the votes, what a sorry excuse for a voting system. Not only does it not accurately represent the views of the voters, but it also destroys any chance smaller independent parties had at a fair representation. In Scotland, Labour received 24.3% of the vote and returned 1 MP, while the SNP received 50% of the vote and returned 56 of the 59 Scottish MPs.Our government is dominated by two major parties, Labour and Conservative, both of which have recently shown that they don’t know what the public wants or needs.
Despite a clear need for rapid change in order to revive what little is left of our democracy, the majority of the UK is living in Lala land convinced that their needs are being attended to. I’m sure if the government really cared about what the general public wanted, the victims of the Grenfell tower tragedy would have been rehoused by now, rather than still living in below standard temporary accommodation, 1000 days down the line. If Britain was truly a thriving democracy I’m sure the government would have considered the views of British people before agreeing to put GMO foods in our supermarkets because that is what Boris Johnson’s other half Donald Trump demanded.
A democracy should represent an entire population, not only the ones who could afford a ticket at the table.
Now as many of you know but choose to ignore, the media is controlled by an elite group of white billionaires. And that’s on period. Most of these media bosses, such as known climate change denier Rupert Murdoch and Lord Rothermere, have political affiliations and are under the government’s influence. You see, all UK media platforms project this facade of impartiality and non-bias to the general public, but that’s all it is a facade. All the media giants from the BBC to Sky News claim neutrality when it comes to politics or any matter of public interest, yet their political affiliations say otherwise. According to YouGov 5 out of the 8 biggest national newspapers were predominantly right-wing, thus their loyalty lies with the Conservative party and their ideologies. The UK media presents the news the government wants you to hear, in the way they want you to hear it. This poses a major threat to our democratic processes, as the general public is dependant on media outlets being transparent and non-bias in order to stay informed about what is going on in the country they live in and have a say in.
Let’s not forget that the recent Social Mobility and Child Poverty study found out that just under 50% of the UK national newspaper columnists graduated from Oxford or Cambridge, in comparison to the mere 1% of the Britsh population. On top of that, broadcasting regulator Ofcom found that only 11% of journalists appearing on radio or TV are from an ethnic background. So can we be honest for a second and come to terms with some hard facts, like:
The mainstream media doesn’t give a fuck about the working-class
The mainstream media is racist, islamophobic, homophobic, transphobic, the list goes on
And last but not least, they are biased, no matter how much they swear they’re not. There is a clear need for more media freedom and diversity, cause without it we are screwed. Start directing your attention towards independent media organisations, that don’t have links to rich white men or members of the government.
If you still don’t believe me when I say that the media operates in favour of the government, why don’t you look at the case of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange? A journalist, not a spin doctor or a whistleblower, simply a journalist who did not conform to the government’s status quo. All he did was publish footage, that was given to him by a former USA soldier Chelsea Manning, which featured the US military shooting innocent civilians from a helicopter and cackling about it. The video was called ‘Collateral Murder’ since the publication of the footage both Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange have been incarcerated, with Assange facing up to 175 years in prison, but not a single soul featured in the ‘Collateral Murder’ footage was even bought in front of a judge.
Not to mention the torment he has endured from media portraying him as some sort of terrorist and doing everything in their power to diminish his character. Yet if he is extradited to the US, and convicted what does that mean for media democracy? Let me tell you, it is a clear sign that journalists in so-called democratic countries are under the constant influence of the government, and god forbid they publish anything that goes against them, they will be severely punished. If journalists are stopped from publishing the truth, then we can forget about a free and informed society, let alone a democracy.
So, I ask you, after reading this, do you still think Britain has a stable democracy?
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