In the last few years, the UK’s political structure has become increasingly muddled. Turnout has remained stubbornly low for the past twenty years, Parliament continues to shallowly reflect the electorate, and the role of the state has become confused. I believe that it is time to implement public deliberation, a system that will not only solve such issues that are becoming increasingly concerning but will genuinely enable and excite meaningful change in inspiring a better world.

For context, public deliberation is a bracket of deliberative democracy that involves the engagement of the public in discussions surrounding policy, ideas, events and general life. It does not inherently benefit or lead to the domination of those with higher education qualifications or engaged with politics as all background information is provided, as experiments in the UK have proven. It has been utilised in a variety of ways already from major extents like in Mongolia leading to significant constitutional reform, to small scale extents in the UK across the 1990s which saw positive increases in engagement with politics from those involved. Both of these examples in particular help explain my view as to why public deliberation should be implemented on a large scale in the UK because it can fix the issues troubling the political system, being low turnout and limited parliamentary representation.

Out of the two, I would argue that low turnout can be most swiftly solved. Levels of engagement in topics are all about how it is presented; if it is shown as negative and dull no one will care but if it is interesting and stimulating people will genuinely show some degree of interest – consider the difference a dull teacher makes on a subject in contrast to an engaging and inspiring one – and it is this where public deliberation plays a vital role. It establishes a non-confrontational atmosphere where substantial and considered discussion between different people surrounding politics is encouraged, and this transforms politics from being a taboo subject to an accessible one that engenders excitement and thought-provoking ideas of what should change. These discussions would help inspire a natural rise in turnout because when people are engaged with politics they will consequently be more likely to vote.

The benefits of a natural increase in turnout are important. Most notably, that it leads to political parties representing both problems and ideas from more people. For the past six elections spanning across two decades, more than a third of all registered voters did not actually vote. The problem with this disengagement is that it automatically makes Parliament not representative, as their apathy to vote causes their own voices to be silenced. Perhaps they believe that nothing changes if they do or do not vote, but that is what I think demonstrates just how many people have forgotten that an engaged electorate is a strong electorate, capable of ensuring that its voice is actually recognised, not just through empty parliamentary rhetoric. Through public deliberation, this engagement can be used practically in informing the state what it needs to do. For both political parties and voters, this is a win-win system: the party that best represents and acts to make the changes that people need will be rewarded with substantial time in office and the voters themselves get the changes they seek.

Of course, parliamentary representation is not this simple in solving, primarily due to political parties. The major parties, the Conservatives and Labour, only actually receive between 20-30% of the total electorate’s ‘consent’ in each election to become the governing party. If more people actually voted this would clearly change, but what needs altering is how we view political parties too. Leading up to the 2019 election, where I was five days too young to actually vote, I asked people around me why they were voting the way they did, and watched interviews of the party leaders alongside interviews of the general public. There was quite a common pattern: people were either voting for Labour or the Conservatives because they always did. Some did know the manifestos in and out or the leaders in and out, but others did not really know much about who they were voting for only to ‘stop Corbyn’ or to ‘get the Tories out’. I vividly recall one elderly Labour voter saying they were voting for Labour because their parents always had. In my opinion, this kind of voting mentality is extremely ineffective. Whilst tactical voting does have its uses, it most certainly should not be the norm. People should be going out to vote for ideas they want to be implemented, and picking which party will make a genuinely better Britain – not just the party that will keep the ship afloat in fear the other will irrationally sink it. This mentality will not change by itself, but perhaps through the majority of people engaging in political discussions, it could begin to shift. 

In a situation where Britain has an engaged electorate choosing parties based on what they are genuinely offering, thus making parties properly representative and possibly even going so far as to halt party politics,  it becomes clear that the role of the elected state is to be flexible, and should act considerably in regards to conclusions made from large scale public deliberations of what the UK should aim to be like, or what things people need as a priority, including what types of policies should be implemented or altered. These conclusions will be accessible and open. They will have no obnoxious ideological barrier, nor party preference, so any party can adopt them into their own manifesto to maximise the likelihood of those conclusions being utilised. This is due to the proper enablement of the social contract between state and citizen, whereby the state has the power to make changes, but the citizens have the sovereignty to ultimately determine which changes are made. For example: if the electorate requires a large interventionist state – such as in establishing a welfare state like the NHS, regulating capitalism, and actively working to remove obstacles preventing one’s potential like poverty or limited education opportunities – the state will be given the authority to perform those actions, but if it fails, it will be removed from power to be replaced by another state that will act as needed. If the electorate requires a small state that only tweaks what is already there, the same will be true once more. This is how real, meaningful change can happen because there will always be a state or state-in-waiting ready to implement the changes that need to be made. As the electorate is now strong, engaged and informed, the state cannot simply bank on stressing its recent effectiveness (as the loophole of the 2011 Fixed Term Parliamentary Act created) but rather has to be frequently effective. 

Clearly, public deliberation can solve the major issues troubling UK democracy to a significant extent; however, I believe it can go further to potentially even making a better world. A world that actually cooperates, makes things like meritocracy and capitalism work properly and breaks free from the foul loop of miscommunication, intolerance and pride that is so synonymous with our history. Just imagine how much better the world would become if we could genuinely come together with the goal of discussing our views, problems and ideas to enable actual pragmatic and substantial change. A lot of us think we know what the world needs, as have I in this article, but how about if instead of us trying to prove which one is ‘right’, let us instead start discussing those ideas, find how they overlap, and use those conclusions to begin the process of enabling meaningful change within society, the political realm and beyond.

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