Important changes in Westminster: do we still have a working democracy in the UK?

- UK constituency boundary shake-up expected to boost Tory party by up to 10 seats at the next election

- meanwhile the Parliamentary Constituencies Act has also raised the national campaign spending cap at the next election from £19.5m to about £33m

- that should benefit the Tory party, which tends to attract financial backers with deeper pockets

- Boris Johnson is set to scrap the Fixed Term Parliament Act, giving the incumbent administration the power to decide the timing of the next election instead of being required to hold one every five years

(https://twitter.com/PickardJE/status...46196897984512)

- Continued use of First past the post favours Conservatives as there is no other serious party on right in the UK.

There was already talk of Labour needing to win seats as Blue as those held by Jacob Rees Mogg in order to win next election before any of these changes. At what point does the systematic advantage given to one party stop this from being a working democracy?

On top of that you have the impact of Brexit as described here: https://twitter.com/redhistorian/sta...30243951894529

With an 80 seat majority based on a FptP system today's proceedings are being described as follows:

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MPs are being asked to shovel through, in a single day, a bill that was published yesterday, implementing a treaty agreed six days ago, which comes into force tomorrow night. The European Communities Act 1972 was debated in Parliament for 300 hours. Today's bill will get about 5.

Today's legislation doesn't just transform our trade relations. As @jeff_a_king points out, it gives ministers the power to rewrite vast swathes of domestic law without further scrutiny. It is a massive transfer of power from Parliament to the Executive.

Parliament has to do this with the legislative equivalent of a gun to its head. The UK's current terms of trade with the EU cease to exist in 48 hrs. MPs cannot inflict a crash-out on their constituents, so all that's left for the Opposition parties to argue about is positioning.

It is very doubtful, watching today's proceedings, whether the UK can still accurately be described as a "parliamentary democracy". It is, increasingly, an "executive democracy", in which the largest party doesn't just dominate Parlt, but actively removes it from decision-making.

Brexit has turbo-charged what @davidallengreen & Thomas Poole call "the Executive Power Project": the transfer of power & democratic legitimacy from Parliament to the largest party. This should alarm anyone who thinks that scrutiny, debate & pluralism are important to a democracy

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Not the same as a massive systematic advantage but a sister project to secure power.

Bloody Corbyn outfall ?

we haven,t had democracy for the last 4 1/2 years ,from those trying to stop brexit .what goes around,comes around :hehe:

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Originally Posted by life on mars

Bloody Corbyn outfall ?

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Gibber Thatcher topspin ?

Labour will have to bring forth vibrant, young new ideas and shake off the last decade of failure and win those seats , as most folk point out Boris as most is a useless buffon , and the Tories are worthless, with all that failure they should be easy pickings with or without new boundaries as the electorate is gagging for change and a new political direction .