Is this representative democracy?

[IwantToRetire]

So not interested in the personalities, but about the fact that it is likely the UK will have another PM not voted on via a GE, but as a result of internal party factions.

So Starmer is sixth PM to be ousted by their own party since 1990. If you exclude 1990 (Thatcher) it is 5 PMs in the past 19 years. Blair, May, Johson, Truss, Starmer.

Before that Lloyd George 1922 and Chamberlain 1940.

A quick YouGov poll today showed that the majority thought Burnham should be challenged, and then whoever wins the internal Labour voting, there should be a general election. (See https://account.yougov.com/gb-en/account/daily-questions - though suspect this link is only valid for today 23 June 26) [fn]

Labour has outlined their internal process should anyone stand against Burnham - https://labourlist.org/2026/06/timetable-for-leadership-contest-confirmed-by-nec/

So on one level I have got sort of accustomed to PMs coming and going, and technically, even though we vote for a local MP, we are voting for a Party. Is there any reason to think somehow this breaks the bond (assuming there was one) between Party and voter?

Or is it because our politics now is personality politics, and if it was instead about the Party, we would just accept that if they feel it is necessary to make a change to who is PM they should just get on and do it?

Or is it that we the voters think of it as personality contest and somehow think that magically one person will change the direction of a Party. Although technically the UK is governed by the Cabinet not the PM.

Or is it that irrespective of voters, all parties are not a cohesive group but an endless battle between factions and for party members who wins these internal wars are the most important. Not for the benefit of voters but to be the top faction (for a while).

[fn] I took a longer version of the YouGov poll invite by email, and pleased to say this time they asked for Sex, and then in a follow up question asked about Gender Identity – if you have one. Not sure when they made this change but first time I have seen it.

Why exclude Thatcher? She was famously visited by the members of her cabinet who told her in no uncertain terms she had to go.

Your MP is your representative, and you have delegated your ability to choose your leader to them, for the duration of parliament. So yes, representative democracy.

The alternative to a representative democracy is a direct democracy; we don’t live in one of those.

Did you read the OP?! You'll find her name there ...

I know Labour constantly made comments about the PM not having a mandate because the country hadn't elected him/her PM when the Tories had a revolving door on No 10. Bo Jo held a general election and was voted back in by a landslide, maybe Burnham will call an election and hope for the same luck.
We do vote for MP's who come from parties (unless you vote for an independent of course) but a lot of the time I think people who are swing voters are persuaded to vote for a party according to whoever is leading the it, so it is part popularity contested.

I think it’s just the oddly worded sentence of “if you exclude 1990 (thatcher), it is 5 PMs in the last 19 yrs.

1990 isn’t in the last 19 yrs, and if it was, why exclude it.

I think it meant that, we've had 5 PM's in the last 19 years who were ousted, before that there was just Thatcher because you have to go all the way back to 1940 and 1922 for the others. They're just making the point that we don't generally go in for ousting PM's in the UK but in the last 20 years we've done it 5 times.

Which shows how much trust the political classes have lost with the public, because a party usually only gets out the long knives in response to pressure from the electorate.

I really wanted Labour to stop it being possible to switch leaders on a whim, or at least make it much harder. They whined endlessly about the Tories doing it (rightly, IMO), and vowed they would certainly not be doing the same thing. Yet here they are joining in with musical prime ministers, and conveniently forgetting how determined they were that it was bad for democracy, and there should be a GE for any change in PM.

And this time is much, much worse! He's not even a MP so he has no relationship with most of his new team, he's not going to have a contest so he doesn't have to present policies and be questioned about them, it's all very sudden so even if he has idea he has no idea of workability or costings - he's already backtracking and refusing questions as he clearly has no actual firm ideas what whatsoever, other than 'not be Keir'.

He's some random smarmy man known only for bitching non-stop during Covid, pretending he single-handedly turned Manchester around when in fact almost all (or all?) his 'achievements' were dreamt up and started by other people, and for losing multiple bids for leader when he presumably did have to present and defend policies. Oh, and for promptly saying' fuck you' to his beloved Manchester - and to the taxpayer - at the first opportunity and abandoning them to a mayoral election at great expense because he thought he could finally slither his way into power. And what's actually going for him? oh yes, the looniest of Labour MPs think he's the messiah - and as we've seen plenty of examples of their judgement over the past year, I wouldn't say that gives me much fucking confidence.

Did you elect a delegate to represent you in the process of making laws and governing?

If so, then yes, it is a representative democracy.

Glad OP posted this. As i find some of the current (and previous debates) on this issue frustrating.

Most people do not understand the evolvement of our particular democracy and as PP’s have said we elect a local delegate to represent our interests in parliament.

Delegates have over centuries evolved into political parties, and sign up broadly to the manifesto of their group, or political party.

We do not elect a Prime Minister, hence the constitutional convention of the king inviting the majority group leader to become the Kings Prime Minister.
The clue is in the title.

We do not have a written constitution, it is to be found in all manner of legal rulings and conventions.

If anyone wants to force an election upon the change of leadership, a law providing for this would not survive a legal constitutional challenge.

In any event it would be open to the subsequent government to repeal such a law.

So in our so called democracy it cannot be done.

The only way to have such a rule is for a written constitution to be created covering everything. But based on the whole structures of our democracy i can not see how that could be achieved without removing the King, and Royal succession.

Not that i am a royalist.

I reckon that quite a few politicians know this and it is just the usual hot air.

Too late for me to properly comment, but whilst I accept the theory, the reality is that what seems to have happened is that factions within parties are creating this. Not say "doing the right thing" because a proposed bill was not passed by the HoC.

So on paper (and I think most in the UK see it like) that we vote for a delegate to represent us within a party, where a smaller group forms a Government.

I think that is why the YouGov poll shows a majority thinking there should be a GE.

The other side of it, is so much time is taken up with the Parties having their own melodramas, that is it any wonder it can seem to voters none of them are doing their job.

Which builds on the feeling that nothing ever happens, or what should have happened goes wrong.

So Starmer is sixth PM to be ousted by their own party since 1990. If you exclude 1990 (Thatcher) it is 5 PMs in the past 19 years. Blair, May, Johson, Truss, Starmer.
Before that Lloyd George 1922 and Chamberlain 1940.

Surely it is obvious, even if i wrote it badly, because many people are talking about it, that this is somehow symbolic of UK politics in the here and now.

ie PMs resigning was rare. 2 in the first half of the 20th century, and 1 in the second half. And then from 2006 (yes not 19 but 20) 5 PMs.

ie this indicates a change in party politics in action in the UK.

1900-1949 2
1950-1999 1
2000-2026 5

We don't have a presidential system and I'm glad about that. I think there are pros and cons to both but overall I'd rather have the stronger connection to an MP.

Quote " "... what seems to have happened is that factions within parties are creating this..."

I suppose the solution to that would be more parties, the traditional parties being too broad really. That would likely result in coalition governments. I think that would be good because a coalition would be representative of more of the electorate. However, in the end the coalitions that are closest would probably combine, and the system would evolve back to being a main 2 party system again.

The way I see it, factions in existing parties are ok. Because if a constituency votes for an MP to the left or right of how a PM turns out, then that MP is correct to challenge the direction the PM takes, within the manifesto.

The issue with that though is how the candidates for MPs are selected. Do the electorate select the candidate or do the Party ? That is an issue.

My radical idea to address that would be for candidates for MP's to be selected from, or preference given to, acting councilors. Or recent ex councilors.

I can invoke the Starmer " my dad was a toolmaker" thing here to justify that radical idea. Toolmakers need to serve an apprenticeship. Why should MPs not?

OP. Should you ask MN to move you thread to politics ?

Because this is a thread about "representative democracy", but you have put it under feminism. I would say that is a bit exclusionary. Especially given that I don't see feminism mentioned in your opening post. Apart from the bit in the youguv poll you mention.

I think it’s technically legally ok to do this, however I do think in reality a lot of people who vote in a general election cast their ballot primarily based on which party they want in charge nationally and also on who they want to be PM. Very politically engaged people may well vote more specifically around what various local MP’s experience and reputation is like etc. But I think that’s a minority in reality honestly. So I think it’s one of those things where what’s written in law says one thing when the common man or woman understands it differently.

I am personally a bit bemused by the whole thing in that as far as I can tell, Burnham actually has very similar policies to Starmer. So I definitely feel the whole thing has been a bit backstabby. Different if something dramatic happens eg with Truss crashing the economy, that means everyone can see they need to change course drastically and so need a new PM (actually I do think they should have called a general election then as I think we needed a whole new party but I digress).

But it does feel as though Starmer has been forced out for the crime of simply being less charismatic than Burnham despite the nitty gritty likely of policy not changing all that much. I’d be annoyed and upset in his shoes.

I can see that Burnham may well be better at bringing people alongside him with a clear hopeful vision of the future, and trumpeting his successes. I can also see that Starmer is for whatever reason deeply unpopular especially among the far right (in my opinion he has mostly just been unfairly blamed for the country’s ills), and the far right is rising, so it is imperative that Labour are able to really rise to the challenge otherwise we really could end up with Farage as PM which would be such a disaster. And it would have been hard to really turn things around before the next election with Starmer at the wheel, fairly or unfairly.

Personally I’d like them to just get on with it now having caused this whole situation! I like Burnham and I do think if anyone can bring the country together a bit and face down the threat from the far right, he may well be the man for the job. I do appreciate why some people feel his ideas and policies should face proper scrutiny first in a leadership challenge, and then potentially another general election. However, the alternatives are ?Wes Streeting for goodness sake (I’m a GP and he is second only to Hunt in my eyes as a nightmare of a man). Rayner has ruled herself out which is a shame as I think she’d do a good job given half the chance. If she was standing I’d like to see it play out. As it stands I think just let Burnham take over, fine by me! I think they’d be mad to call a general election right now. They are running out of time to show the country some green shoots of hope of positive change of some kind! If they do a leadership contest then a general election, none of them will be focussing on actually trying to sort out the major pressing problems in the country and I actually don’t think they can afford to take their eye off the ball right now. So yeah, I say just get on with it and do a “coronation” of Burnham and move on!

As others have said we don’t vote directly for a Prime Minister in the UK. Only referendums are direct votes, everything else voters delegate to their local MP, who we directly voted in, they represent us and make decisions (sometimes bad ones) on our behalf.

This. You vote for your MP, not the Prime Minister.

In reality, who the potential PM would be drives voting choices more than who the MP is.

All of this ^

I’m seriously fucked off about the whole affair. Looks to me as though Starmer wasn’t ‘left’ enough to the satisfaction of his backbenchers or maybe his cabinet. When something went wrong, it was Starmer who got blamed. But one person does not single-handedly run this entire country. If Burnham retains any of the cabinet, why should we expect anything to change at all. But if Burnham changes the cabinet, then they’ve got to get to grips with their brief and that takes time.

I would love for Burnham to be an amazing PM, but I’m not expecting him to.

I delegated my ability to choose a leader , yes, but I voted Labour on the strength of their leader and manifesto at the time. No one has any idea what a Burnham manifesto would look like, and he doesn’t have much of a track record of being in an administration.

Is the way Burnham has gone about it democratic though.

He had to have someone, who was only elected 2 years ago, standdown so he could stand in a byelection for the seat just to get into parliament so he could overthrow the person who was in charge of the party when it were elected in 2 years ago.

It doesn't sound democratic to me, if I were Kemi I'd be making a big deal of this come September. 😁

The reason the big parties have constant melodramas is because they aren't really parties at all - they are coalitions, and loose ones at that. There's not many other countries where Rory Stewart and Rupert Lowe could have been members of the same party.

This is a direct result of FPTP - the only way of winning with the FPTP system is to form 'parties' which are effectively coalitions of the unwilling. Of course this is made even worse now that the 2-party system is dead and buried. If we persist with FPTP we are condemned to government elected on a minority of the vote share, and by parties who are full of warring factions that would be separate parties in a sane world.

Yep. He’s a carpetbagger. And he’s abandoned Greater Manchester, and whatsisname who stood down in Makerfield has abandoned the people who voted for him.
It’s all pretty unimpressive.

I think the most undemocratic thing was Josh Simons (?) resigning his seat so that Burnham could stand. If I was in Makerfield I’d be pretty unimpressed - ditto for the mayoral election which will now be needed.

If Burnham (assuming) continues with the existing manifesto then I don’t think he needs a GE, but if he wants to change it then I think he should.

As touched on above, our political parties have generally encompassed a range of views. This makes things easier in that we don’t generally have months of negotiation following an election, but the different factions do tend to appear at the most difficult times. This structure also allowed Starmer to adopt the much more left wing persona needed to get elected as leader of the Labour Party, then shift right (as needed) to win a GE. This does mean that his manifesto, and what he needed to do was rather at odds with his MP’s…….Maybe a more fragmented party landscape would make the situation more explicit to MP’s/the electorate (you don’t get everything you want/ compromise is essential) - although obv it didn’t help Nick Clegg

Really, I’m curious about what Burnham’s policies will be & I wish the Labour MP’s were keener to interrogate this before deciding he’d make the best leader. Streeting’s ‘Battle if Ideas’ would have been my preference, but I think Wes can see that now is a difficult moment to step up, waiting for Burnham to fail is politically smarter

PMs are not directly elected in the UK. They are not the 'head' of the government either, but 'prima inter pares', first among equals (something which is forcibly pointed out to them when they come unstuck like Starmer). They appoint their peers and the sole criterion for being PM is that he/she enjoys the confidence of the Commons i.e. their Parliamentary party in government. The monarch used to do the choosing, usually being offered a couple of names everyone in the governing party would accept. It doesn't seem undemocratic to me, based on how the constitution works. We voted in Labour and they choose who will lead their governing party. Cheaper than having an election and if they choose to have an internal election among party members they pay, not the rest of us.

We do not elect delegates. If they are delegates then it's not a representative democracy.