Background to British Politics: Lecture 3

Dr Robert Saunders: Developing a Democracy

The Making of Modern Democracy

Before (1830) After (2014)

Legal ChangesReform Acts:• 1832: The ‘Great’ Reform Act Reforms the constituency system and extends the franchise to middle class voters• 1867: The Second Reform Act Extends the vote to working men in towns• 1884/5: The Third Reform Act Extends the vote to working men in counties• 1918: The Fourth Reform Act Establishes universal suffrage for men and enfranchises most women over 30• 1928: The Fifth Reform Act Equalises the voting qualification for men and women, enfranchising almost everyone over the age of 21Other Reforms:• 1872: Secret Ballot Act: Introduces secret voting• 1883: Corrupt Practices Act: First effective safeguards against bribery and corruption• 1911 Parliament Act: Abolishes the House of Lords veto• 1911 Payment of MPs

The Electoral System Before 1832

POPULATION: 0 MPs: 2

‘Rotten boroughs’: Old Sarum

Unequal Constituencies (c. 1830)

Liverpool: population 200,000 St Germans: population 672

2 MPs 2MPs

Reformers but not DemocratsLord John Russell:

Democracy is ‘the grave of all temperate liberty and the parent of tyranny and licence’

Benjamin Disraeli:

‘We do not live – and I trust it will never be our fate to live – under a democracy’

John Bright:

‘I do not pretend myself to be a Democrat; I never accepted that title, and those who knew me and spoke honestly of me never applied it to me’

Outdated: Democracy in the Ancient World

Unstable: Democracy and Revolution

The French Revolution The US Civil War

Unrepresentative: Democracy as Class Government

• ‘Democracy’ = rule of the ‘demos’; the mob, or the poor• ‘Aristocracy’ = rule of the ‘aristos’: the elite, or ‘the best’

• ‘Mixed constitution’: one that represents all classes and interests, giving exclusive power to no single group

Drivers of Democracy

• Social Change‘No political institutions ever devised by the ingenuity of man, have been so democratic in their tendency as the steam-engine with all its manifold appliances. Railroads, the penny-post, the electric telegraph, have all lent assistance to develop the same democratic element’ (Fraser’s Magazine, 1849).• Party ChangeGrowth of mass membership parties, mobilising voters throughout the electoral cycle.

The ‘Flexible’ Constitution

• ‘The history of England is emphatically the history of progress’; a tale of ‘constant change in the institutions of a great society’

Thomas Macaulay, 1848

Adding new cohorts to the electorate

• 1832: Gives MPs to the great industrial towns and cities, like Manchester and Birmingham.

Enfranchises more of the industrial middle class• 1867: Aims to enfranchise the educated, respectable and

independent working class in towns• 1884: Aimed at the agricultural labourers and rural working class

• 1918: Enfranchisement of married or older women

The Role of Popular Protest

• Paul Foot, The Vote (2005)‘There was never any major concession on reform without some sign that people would fight for it. The concessions were not voluntary. They were not inspired by the ingenuity, generosity or democratic spirit of the politicians. Each one of them was wrung out of Commons and Lords by mass agitation and mass action’

‘The Second Reform…zzzzz’

1885 onwards: a partial democracy?

• Creation of national party organisations, to mobilise the electorate• National Union of Conservative Associations (1867)• National Liberal Federation (1877)

• Parties operating in the constituencies throughout the electoral cycle

• The rise of charismatic leaders, marketed as presidential figures to the public

Gladstone and Disraeli: Merchandise

Non-Democratic Elements

• MPs still unpaid

• 40% of adult men still excluded from the electorate

• All women still excluded from the electorate

The Campaign for Women’s Suffrage

March of the Women!

Shout, shout, up with your song!Cry with the wind for the dawn is breaking;March, march, swing you along,Wide blows our banner and hope is waking.Song with its story,Dreams with their glory,Lo! they call, and glad is their word!Loud and louder it swells,Thunder of freedom, the voice of the Lord!

‘Suffragists’ ‘Suffragettes’

Peaceful, constitutional Militant and sometimes violent

Women’s Social and Political Union

War Posters, 1914-18

Unequal Constituencies (2010)

Largest Constituencies• 1. Isle of Wight (Con) - 109,902• 2. East Ham (Lab) - 90,674• 3.Manchester Central (Lab) -

90,110• 4. North West Cambridgeshire

(Con) - 88,851• 5. Ilford South (Lab) - 87,765

Smallest Constituencies• 1. Na h-Eileanan an Iar (SNP) -

21,780• 2. Orkney and Shetland (LD) -

33,085• 3. Arfon (PC) - 41,198• 4. Aberconwy (Con) - 44,593• 5. Dwyfor Meirionnydd (PC) -

45,364