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> We ejected one of the previous PMs for having a party during a lockdown

Weirdly that never happened, but that's how many people remember it.

He was ejected because he lost the support of his ministers (most of who resigned over a period of a few weeks) after he had made them to go out and lie to the public on his behalf in the case of Chris Pincher MP.

To be entirely fair, that was a combination of many things (Pincher, wallpaper, partygate, covid deaths, covid deals, brexit, etc). The ministers are also MPs, and they want to be reelected. By that point it was clear that the partygate is not going away, so they needed a scapegoat.

The point still stands though. A populist PM who did a tiny bit of mismanagement and corruption (relative to his current peer in the US) was forced to resign. Trump isn't.

> - We just changed our PM

non-democratically. there was no election. the ruling party simply made a decision itself. Just like in China.

A representative democracy is still a democracy.

The ruling party has changed just two years ago. Hardly China, is it

I don't get why you're making excuses for this stuff. Trump is one kind of bad, but almost all western governments are increasingly unaccountable to their voters. And these are usually the folks that claim to be defenders of democracy. The hypocrisy is breathtaking.

> almost all western governments are increasingly unaccountable to their voters

In this country, the government with a vast majority couldn't even withdraw a small cash payment from better off pensioners without a rebellion from their own MPs.

Those generalising takes are entirely disconnected from the political reality of the UK outside of twitter.

They're making excuses for this stuff because the wording used around it in this comment thread has been quite hysterical. For all the problems plaguing modern democracies, leadership elections are not one of them. In representative democracies, the leader of the party isn't god like how a president is in non-parliamentary systems. The role has some additional powers, but it doesn't get its own branch of government. Most importantly, party leaders are still MPs who were democratically elected by their constituents - the party leader designation is an internal role. You can even affect it by becoming a party member in most cases. This is incredibly mundane stuff that has existed for decades to centuries, so people here immediately jumping in to talk about China or say that this is somehow worse than Trump just seems like enraged flailing in an attempt to portray many other democracies not being exactly like the US as horrific injustice.

> despite his party having a historic majority.

33% of the vote is a historically low majority, so I guess you're technically correct.

As you're well aware, we have a first-past-the-post system and what matters in this system is the number of MPs.

A system where the government is chosen by 33% of voters has no legitimate claim to be democracy, that is, rule by the people.

That's a substantially larger vote share than any other party:

https://electionresults.parliament.uk/general-elections/6

The electoral college would throw up equally weird results if the US didn't have a fully two-party system. (How's that working out?)

This is not an actionable claim. What are you supposed to do in a multi-party system if nobody wins a majority and voter turnout is 60%? Just have anarchy until someone wins an outright majority?

In most of them you form coalitions.

You left a few items off the list, for instance:

- We can't beat off to porn anymore without a VPN, because our nanny government has blocked it.

- Our government sends hilarious fines to foreign websites when it disapproves of their moderation.

That's not necessarily evidence of undemocratic processes. One of the big downsides of democracy is that it gives the absolute knuckledraggers the same vote as anybody else. It seems to me like the UK has the same problem as the US: they have a revealed preference for autocratic policies, because no one gets excited about the government apparently doing nothing.

>because no one gets excited about the government apparently doing nothing.

Well yes. Precisely because the government was "doing nothing" while issues that plagued the voting population like migration, wealth disparity and affordability crisis were constantly growing for the past ~15 years until it reached breaking point.

Hence why people affected by this are now voting to give the new extremist parties a chance at the helm, because just voting more "doing nothing" by the parties who stood by and enabled this, just guarantees the same issues aggravating. So then what else do you expect to happen at the elections?

I expect a variety of more extremist parties - some offering to kick out the immigrants, others offering to delete all regulations and let the free market prevail, others offering to delete billionaire wealth. Like in the Berlin mayor vote this week, where both the extreme left seize-billionaire-wealth party and the extreme right ban-immigrants party both won sizeable shares (in fact the extreme left party won a plurality)

>Like in the Berlin mayor vote this week, where both the extreme left seize-billionaire-wealth party

And how is Berlin planning to seize the wealth of billionaires?

Because I've seen this play out before, where every supposed promise to tax the billionaires, just ends up as another tax burden on the working class high earners and entrepreneurs who already pay the highest tax rates and are the furthest thing possible from billionaires, but still gets political support from the unwashed masses since it's entirely envy driven.

How is the ban immigrants party going to ban immigrants? How is the delete regulations party going to delete regulations? Last time the extreme left party had any power, it set a city law saying rent couldn't be higher than a certain amount, but the landlords sued the city government in federal court, and won because apparently there is a constitutional right for landlords to collect as much money as possible.

Can you elaborate on "migration" being an "issue that plagues the voting population"?

What of that was unclear to you?

A lot of voters disliked the effects migration had on their country, being also one of the reason why they voted for Brexit, and why the vote far right parties right now.

UK does not have freedom of expression.

Both the UK and the US fail in rule of law regarding "all citizens and leaders must be equal before the law, supported by strong anti-corruption measures."

UK has stated separation of powers but the crown reportedly nudged Starmer to step down. The king is the one that can formally appoint government following elections.

Prince Andrew had and other royals have control over military forces in the UK, canada, australia, nz, ect. You can hem and haw all you want but the crown has constitutional and ceremonial control over the armed forces.

The King gives 'the kings speech' which is used to set the governments legislative agenda to parliment.

The king also gives royal assent to bills passed by parliment.

Black spider memos

The king also steers diplomatic efforts abroad.

every single aspect of UKs democracy can be cut by the King whenever he wants.

What is the actual purpose of freedom of expression in a democracy? Is it being able to call people N-word online with no repercussions, or is it being able to organise, form political parties, and change the country?

If it's the former, then indeed the US has more of it.

If it's the latter, the UK has three new major parties with very different policies that openly and vocally oppose Labour, Conservatives, and Libdems. Mainstream media regularly broadcasts their views. I might strongly disagree with those views, but these parties are clearly freely operating political organisations. How is the US doing with viable non-Dem and non-Republican parties?

I won't comment on your Crown conspiracy theories.

From your list of purposes about freedom of expression, you're missing "the ability to criticize powerful individuals". If you cannot prove, in a court of law, that your statements are 100% true, you can absolutely lose your shirt in a defamation suit in the UK. It's so egregious that the US had to pass a law specifically shielding American free speech from the UK's libel laws. (to their credit, in 2013 they improved their laws substantially, such that you can no longer be found liable for provably true statements)

In the US, in contrast, you can say pretty much anything, as long as it plausibly enough true that the plaintiff can't prove you don't believe it. "Donald Trump is a child rapist" is an example of speech that would not be protected in UK courts. Sure, I can point at all his visits to Epstein's Island, and his running child pageant shows, and complaints made against him to establish that it's not unreasonable to believe it, but I cannot prove in a court of law that he did it. So in the UK, he would win a defamation suit against me. On the flip side, here in the States that is quite safe to say in a public forum. It's quite difficult to prove a negative, and even if they passed that bar, they would then need to prove to a court that I did not believe that statement.

> What is the actual purpose of freedom of expression in a democracy? Is it being able to call people N-word online with no repercussions, or is it being able to organise, form political parties, and change the country?

What is the difference between the two? Because you're going to make a cultural argument and NOT a legal one. The C-word is one you throw around (and the Aussies to) but would cause an American woman be pretty upset. You seem perfectly fine with its use, but we frown on both terms socially but they are strictly legal.

Defamation VS political speech would be a better comparison, and I could make the argument that Americans being more lenient are better off with our freedoms.

Being as charitable as possible: there is a lot of difference between

- swear words

- slurs

- speech enabling political organising

…which is not a matter of "upset".

The UK constitutional system is built around mutually assured destruction. If one part doesn't follow convention, the whole system will collapse and everyone loses.

Yes, the monarch can in theory override the government by blocking legislation, but won't because one time a monarch did that, he ended up with his head cut off. If a monarch ever did that in modern times, Britain would quickly be a republic.

Everyone follows convention and stays in their lane and doesn't rock the boat. The last time a bill didn't get royal assent was in 1708. It simply hasn't happened since.

'The kings speech' is written by the government usually based on the manifesto they were elected on. The monarch just reads it. The monarch's role in modern times is to advise the prime minister and act as continuity advisor across governments. While the monarch may offer commentary on legislation, they won't block it, and the government is free to ignore it.

Same with the armed forces. It's ministers that control the army not the monarch. In modern Britain, the monarch's role is purely ceremonial. The monarch cannot order the armed forces into conflict.

Usually legislation gets blocked in the House Of Lords (the unelected chamber) which is why a lot constitutional reform is focused on cleaning that up, but it's game of inches because neither party wants to lose influence.

While the constitutional system may make it seem like the monarch has a lot of hard power, in reality they have none, and since the civil war can't do anything without the approval of Parliament.

Last time I'm aware the monarch did something, it was the firing of the entire Australian parliament and calling a snap election. Which is quite a sensible thing to do if parliament is completely jammed, and since it was reasonably sensible and popular in the situation it happened, nothing happened to the monarch. (Imagine if someone had the power to do that to Congress! Maybe they'd actually do stuff again, and we'd have to rename them to Progress)

This is an alright use of a monarch IMO.

Yes. This fits with the UK monarch's modern role which is to ensure continuity of government.

The UK example would be if the UK government lost a vote of confidence, the monarch might ask the opposition parties to see if they could form a government that could pass a vote of confidence to avoid a general election. Although parliamentary math makes such a scenario unlikely in practice.

On the UK end I don't think the monarch can sack the Prime Minister. While the UK monarch could strongly suggest to a Prime Minister that it's time to resign. Usually when a Prime Minister gets to that point, it's usually the end of the road and they won't last much longer anyway even if they pushed forward.

The monarch has a lot of soft power which under the modern system is usually deployed to ensure continuity of government rather than in a controlling manner.

(The Australia, Canada, etc constitutions gives the monarch different powers than the UK and it's usually delegated to whoever is the governor for that nation)

Yeah, I don’t think you have any understanding of how the crown interacts with the rest of the UK government.

There are some oddities, but the idea that the crown could actually exercise any of their powers, without causing a constitutional crisis, and UK rapidly becoming a republic, is farcical.

> The King gives 'the kings speech' which is used to set the governments legislative agenda to parliment.

You’re aware that the kings speech is written by the government, not the crown. It’s how the government lays out its parliamentary agenda to parliament, the civil service and the country at large. Heck there’s a whole ritual around the crown having to beg permission to enter the commons etc to emphasise the point that crown enters and speaks at the pleasure of the commons.

> The king also steers diplomatic efforts abroad.

No, the king is given instructions by the foreign office on what he’s expected to help with. Every trip and meeting the king does is checked and cleared by the uk government, and they can and have vetoed trips before.

> every single aspect of UKs democracy can be cut by the King whenever he wants.

You should watch the Jonny English movies, they’re a great documentary on how this could happen.

That's government theatre, not democracy.

Here's the reality: https://x.com/flying_rodent/status/2102527889556291773

And also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Wilson_plot_allegations

Calling big changes in power, substantive shifts in policy, and constitutional changes "government theatre" to then link to "Flying_Rodent" on twitter as "reality" is just comically unselfaware.

On some Twitter ripoff site called "x.com" actually

Parliament has absolutely no constitutional limits on it. It can and has made retroactive laws that are not allowed in the US.

Parliament does have constitutional limits on it (for example, see timetabling powers or Erskine May), even if it can't pass acts that will bind future Parliaments. The constitution being (largely) unwritten and changeable doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

The result is substantially more democratic, as per the list above.

Please explain the constitutional limits to Parliament in more detail.

The result seems substantially more chaotic.

And then there is the fact that the entire legal frame work is based on The Crown. If the king or queen killed someone they would have to prosecute themselves. This is the exact opposite of democracy.

Parliament is not in control of its own timetable, for one. Bit of a restriction on exercising its sovereignty, innit. And yes democracies can be chaotic.

It's entirely mad to me that I can make a list of easily verifiable, massively important examples of democratic processes in this country in the last few years and someone would just come up with a hypothetical like "but what if King kills someone" like it's somehow not just equal but has more weight than the list. Mad

> "but what if King kills someone"

Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard would like a word.

What would the argument even be here? That the UK can never be a democracy because of what Henry VIII did in the 16th century?

No.

But processes that exist to preserve democracy that arent governed by that democracy are problematic. Saying the "king would never do..." when a king has makes the argument silly.

The UK is not alone in this - a great example is the filibuster in the us (a senate rule).

Hmm, so your argument actually is that a politically motivated prosecution in the 16th century that occurred before the UK even existed, before constitutional democracies were much of a thing, and that couldn't occur under present UK constitutional arrangements, is proof that the UK at present is not a democracy. I'm not sure if you're in a position to call other people's argument's "silly".

I'm sorry but someone claiming to have such an amazingly democratic government when they have a monarch who has absolute personal immunity from civil and criminal proceedings under UK law and whose face is on all the bank notes is a bit silly. This is the least democratic thing possible.

Queen Elizabeth used Queen's Consent many many times to prevent or modify laws she didn't like. An investigation by The Guardian revealed that more than 1,000 parliamentary bills were subjected to Queen's Consent or Prince's Consent during Queen Elizabeth II's reign.

The British government feels like a delicate standoff between Parliament and the crown.

And yet, you were ordered to stay home during coronavirus and threatened with fines if you did not comply. Also, the Internet is censored by your ISPs, you increasingly need to prove your age/identity to do anything online, and it isn't clear for how long you will be able to work around that with VPNs. Apart from that, the UK truly looks like a democratic paradise.

> We just changed our PM, despite his party having a historic majority.

Yeah? The country got to vote for the PM? I don't recall there being a national election. Having a bunch of party insiders replace the leader who won an election with an unelected one is the opposite of democracy.

We have a representative democracy, not a direct one.

I invite you to consider the rest of the points, too.

The leader of the party stepping down (for non-medical reasons) should trigger an election. The fact that it doesn't is scandalous. We have the same problems in Canada where we elected a minority Liberal government that has now magically turned into a majority due to legislators switching parties. How can someone flip from the opposition party to the ruling one and still claim to be representing the will of the people who voted for them?

Funny thing is, your desired system is a constitutional change and it's entirely feasible in the UK if there's enough support for it. Which is exactly my point.