TThe voter is never wrong. At that time of Vox Pops, phones, discussion groups and constant polls, this vision of democracy is more widespread than ever. Work The strategists reveal the conservative switches and “hero voters”, while Keir Starmer often says that his government is “at the service of the electorate. With the fragmentation of British policy, voters are now courted by five national parties – an unprecedented situation, made even more unpredictable by an electoral system designed for serious competition between two. It would only be a slight exaggeration to say that we are all swing voters now.
In some respects, it is a welcome and potentially exciting change. Since the late 1980s, Westminster has mainly offered voters a limited menu – generally a bland labor center or variations that are always conservative of thatcherism – accompanied by condescending messages that no other recipe is practical. However, now the ministers, the Ministers of the Shadow and the deputies of all the parties are in the hastily try to offer fresh or fresh dishes: right-wing populism, radical environment, light anti-capitalism mixed with social conservatism and remedies of all kinds for political and social indigestion caused by globalization.
The increase in the pace of British policy in the past decade, with additional general elections, parties frequently changing leaders and ideological offers, and sudden electoral overvoltages and collapses suggest that politicians were more afraid of voters – and that voters have become less unworthy to them. The long relations, sometimes too favorable, between voters and the parties that existed for most of the 20th century, and the patience shown by many voters towards their Westminster tribe when it was in power, seem to disappear for good.
But is this policy dominated by voters an entirely welcome development? Recent history does not suggest. In terms of total votes, the two largest political mandates in Great Britain in the 21st century were to leave the European Union in 2016 and to keep Boris Johnson as Prime Minister in 2019. Before that, in 2010 and more decisive in 2015, the Conservative won successive general elections on a pro-austerity platform. However, nowadays, Brexit, the Johnson government and these conservative reductions in public services are largely considered to be disastrous, including by many of those who voted for them. In other words, millions of voters have made bad choices, and we all live with the consequences.
It is true that these voters have often been misled – by David Cameron’s promise to “Strong and stable government“, For example, and the leave campaign pledge additional NHS expenses. But to put all the blame for the dilapidation and the acrimonious state of the country on politicians, as the public and the media usually do, is a practical means for many voters to avoid thinking about their own complicity in what has gone wrong.
A way of imagining a healthier democracy is a place where voters and politicians have frequent clashes but also a degree of mutual respect – and a conscience that they are co -creators of a political culture. It may be optimistic to expect the old Greater Great Britain to become such a country, especially because a large part of our media has a direct interest in voters believing with anger that they are seriously governed. For right-wing publishers and anti-states in particular, a bitter public mood produced better stories.
Although our political life is no longer boring and predictable – the next general electoral result is more difficult to predict than the whole feverish environment of the 1970s – it also seems more and more dysfunctional. Voters are constantly demanding and politicians are constantly promising, different versions of “change”, from British caricatural boosterism of Johnson to the free pledges of “national renewal” of Starmer. These reform plans tend to be imperfect, in part because their production has been so precipitated and that public support for them decreases quickly.
By quickly rejecting each plan, voters avoid having to engage in a form change. Instead, they can express a general dissatisfaction, which can feel cathartic and produce excellent media content, but leaves the deep problems of Great Britain, which would take all years of government to solve, essentially unanswered.
Under the non-stop call to political change, moreover, is often a request that the change be minimized for the voters themselves. Radically Reduce immigration,, drop The objectives of diversity and other socially conservative policies particularly popular with supporters or potential supporters of Reform UK – the minority group around which our policy is currently running – are essentially intended to slow down, stop or even reverse social trends which, according to some British, are too disruptive. Thus, a large part of the feverish quality of British politics today paradoxically comes from the desire that the country remains the same. With its pin -clothes of Amers and the old country clothes, Nigel Farage always seeks to present its hard revolt on the right as a reassuring.
Populism, with all his speeches on people who raise against political elites, is well suited to the periods when voters seem to have the upper hand over politicians. But this advantage over more forms of descending policy can decrease once populists Join the ruling classes. The 10 councils and two mayors who reform the United Kingdom took control of In this month’s elections, this month’s elections can prove to be very difficult for an inexperienced party, in the midst of extremely exaggerated local government finances. Maintaining the role of reform as a vehicle for hopes and almost unlimited desires of certain voters can be even more difficult, once the party is bogged down by municipal cuts and compromises.
The “our contract with you” manifest On the reform of the UK website could become the last change of change of a political party to be watered down, frustrated and finally rejected by an impatient electorate. These days, Farage has a particularly satisfied and pending look, as if he had found a magic political formula; But many other British party leaders in the past 15 years have also believed him.
If and when the current era of the domination of voters ends, perhaps with a government which combines great confidence with a large majority, we can return to it nostalgically. Politicians easily become too safe from themselves and too far from reality, and punish them for these faults is one of the main points of democracy. But voters can also develop these faults. Until more of us realize that our inconsistent and unhappy policy will continue.