Britain today is only notionally a democracy. We have elections every four or five years and that's about it. Recent years have witnessed a "historically unprecedented" decline in voter turnouts - in 2001, only 59% (.pdf) of the British public turned out to vote. That's the lowest turnout since 1918. As a result, the legitimacy of our governments' mandates is looking increasingly questionable. Or, to quote the Power Inquiry, we are facing a situation where `the processes of democracy, including general elections, become empty rituals.'

The Power Inquiry - an independent body chaired by Helena Kennedy QC - was set up in 2004 to understand the reasons for the decline of participation in `formal democracy' and to propose solutions to reverse the trend. It published its report (.pdf) in Febraury 2006 to virtual silence. It concluded that the decline in democratic participation is due to a feeling on the part of citizens that they have little or no impact on political decisions, a lack of difference between the main political parties and an unequal electoral system that leads to wasted votes.

Let's take a look at the second one - a lack of difference between the main political parties. The Power Inquiry concludes that `the main political parties are widely held in contempt' and that they `are seen as offering no real choice to citizens'. The `main political parties are widely percieved to be too similar and lacking in principle.' Let's examine that statement a bit further.

According to opinion polls:

• the British public view President Bush as a greater threat to world peace than President Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong-il and Hassan Nasrallah. Despite this, Tony Blair is having to defend our 'special relationship' with the U.S. and not with Iran, North Korea or Hizbullah. Both the Labour and Conservative parties support the close ties between the UK and U.S. (or rather; the former's complete subservience to the latter). The most radical dissenting voice in the political mainstream on this issue comes from the Liberal Democrats, who call for a `rebalancing' of the relationship. Imagine a similar call to `rebalance' our relationship with Hizbullah, an organisation viewed by the British public as less of a threat to world security than President Bush.
• the British public see U.S. presence in Iraq as a greater threat to world peace than Iran, and yet all the major political parties argue for continued cooperation with the U.S.-led occupation whilst advocating sanctions against Iran.
• when confronted with the full cost of replacing Trident (£25 billion - although in reality, it could be as high as £70 billion), a majority of the British public oppose doing so. Despite this, both Labour and the Conservatives support Trident's replacement. Again, the only `dissenting' voice in the political mainstream comes from the Liberal Democrats. Again, the `dissent' is so marginal that it actually serves to limit rather than expand the debate - the Lib Dems advocate cutting our number of nuclear warheads by half (to 100) and delaying the decision about replacement until 2014.
• the vast majority of the British public oppose the use of nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear weapon state and oppose the use of nuclear weapons against a state that has nuclear weapons but has not used them. However, both Britain and NATO reserve the right to use nuclear weapons in a first-strike. This first-strike doctrine was evident in the run-up to the Iraq war, when Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon warned Saddam Hussein that he could be "absolutely confident" that the UK would use nuclear weapons "in the right conditions".
• the vast majority of the British public would "support the Prime Minister if he were to take a lead in negotiations for world-wide nuclear disarmament". Despite this, all three of the major parties advocate the replacement of Trident, an action that would, according to the prestigious Matrix Chambers, constitute a "material breach" of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
• almost three-quarters of the British public oppose torture in all circumstances. Despite this, Blair's Britain has `condoned` torture, made permissable the use of evidence extracted in Uzbekistani torture chambers and cooperated with CIA `torture flights'. Whilst both the Labour and Conservative parties officially oppose torture, both have a long record of supporting it around the world.
• most Britons are willing to make sacrifices for the sake of the environment. The public supports `green taxes' on goods that are harmful to the environment, and for most people saving the environment is a higher priority than economic growth. And yet; the 2006 Budget contained extremely timid environmental proposals, neglecting even to introduce an aviation tax. This failure was particularly appalling considering the recent publication of the Stern report, which made crystal clear the economic case for spending money to prevent climate change now, or else face astronomically larger costs later trying to deal with it. The UK needs to reduce its carbon emissions by 87% by 2030 in order to avoid catastrophic climate change; under New Labour, CO2 emissions have increased. Neither Labour, the Conservatives or the Lib Dems push policies radical enough to come even close to the 87% target. All three parties are mortally afraid of merely suggesting that we limit economic growth in order to save potentially millions of lives.
• on March 3 2003, only 24% of the British public supported a war in Iraq if UN inspectors did not find a hidden WMD programme and if it was not sanctioned by the UN. As we all now know, Tony Blair lied to the public and to the Commons to drum up support for the war even though it satisfied neither of the above two conditions.

As can be seen, in most of important policy areas, public opinion is either not represented in the political mainstream or else is treated as if utterly irrelevent. It can also be seen that, in most of the important issues, there is virtually no difference between the three major political parties.

It is, however, important to recognise that opinion polls are not everything. One of the limitations of an opinion poll is that it assumes an informed public - if a person votes for replacing Trident without knowing anything about the issue, it doesn't tell us very much. What we want to know is what their opinion would be if they knew the relevent information. That the public is still able to hold such progressive views despite the constant stream of establishment propaganda fed to them by the media is a testament to the law-abiding and compassionate nature of the people.

A true democracy requires an informed public, because people can only make meaningful decisions if they know about the issues. An informed public requires a free press, since most people do not have the time to conduct personal research investigations into all the issues themselves. A democracy requires a free press to objectively and honestly disseminate information to the public. In this area, too, Britain's democracy is sorely lacking. The track record of the British corporate media is exactly what you'd expect from organisations owned by corporations and dependent on corporate money for revenue - i.e. one of remarkably consistent subservience to the establishment. Said the Power Inquiry of the media,

`Another problem is that ownership of the media in Britain is concentrated in too few hands and the grip of particular hands is especially powerful. The support of The Sun newspaper is deemed so critical to political success that the owner was able to insist upon a referendum on the European Constitution and the government was prepared to do a volte face on its previous policy. This speaks volumes to the people about where power lies and reinforces the view that our votes are not what counts.'

`The media largely serves its own (financial) interests and barely serves the interests of the public.'(p. 245)

`Commercial considerations influence too greatly how newspapers and other media gather, edit and represent news stories about politics.'(p. 244)

`Commercial considerations influence too greatly how newspapers and other media gather, edit and represent news stories about politics.'(p. 244)

`The media routinely and systematically ignores the serious problems of our times, such as climate change, global poverty, massive political unrest social instability and dispossession all over the world and spends much of its time analysing party political rhetoric, the behaviour of the Windsor family and the wranglings of religious establishments.'(p. 244-5)

(all except the first quote: source)

As I say, the media's track record has been remarkably consistent over the years. Let's, for now, take one example: the Iraq war. In the run-up to the invasion, any historical context was virtually invisible in the mainstream media. There was virtually no discussion of the "genocidal" sanctions that had killed up to a million Iraqis or of the U.S.' and UK's long history of imperialism and bloody colonialism. Information that cast doubt (to put it mildly) on the warmongerers' claims about Iraqi WMD was suppressed. There was no questioning of Bush and Blair's motives - the debate was limited to discussion of tactics, or of whether or not humanitarian intervention justified the war, or of whether or not Saddam's WMD arsenal did pose a threat. There was no doubting that the war was indeed about WMD or humanitarian intervention. The `free' press, obliging as ever, simply accepted the war on Bush and Blair's terms. An Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) study into the media performance during the Iraq war concluded that,

`Many reports about the military campaign favoured the coalition and all media outlets became more deferential towards government during the period of major combat operations...

`The Sun gave the most explicit support to coalition operations among newspapers but much newspaper coverage - even in the Independent and Daily Mirror, the most avowedly anti-war publications - was supportive of the military campaign...

`Coverage mainly served to reinforce official justifications for war, in particular the humanitarian case for regime change in Iraq. Media debate over the reasons for the action tailed off once the war started. The tendency was for news media to accept the official position and this enabled the coalition's moral case for the war to go by default.'

It is clear that democracy in Britain is in severe crisis. There is no need to dispair. A free press is entirely achievable, and it is entirely possible to have a true democracy (or atleast something very much approximating it) - in fact, if we look at countries like Bolivia, we can get a good idea of what true democracy looks like. As Noam Chomsky explains:

`[Bolivia] had a real democratic election last year, of a kind that you can't imagine in the United States, or in Europe, for that matter. There was mass popular participation, and people knew what the issues were. The issues were crystal clear and very important. And people didn't just participate on election day. These are the things they had been struggling about for years.'

It would, however, take a monumental effort to push through the democratic reforms necessary to truly allow the British (and American) people to govern themselves. Powerful establishment forces - to whom, of course, the very idea of true democracy is an anathema - would have to be fought every step of the way. It would require mass, sustained public action. That, of course, is what true democracy is all about.

Cross-posted at The Heathlander