Is there a participation crisis in the UK?

The legitimacy of an election or a referendum’s mandate is directly affected by the number of turnout rate, where the higher the turnout rate the more legitimate the mandate is, showing the absolute importance of turnout rate. In the modern society of UK, general elections happen every five years and it is absolutely essential for the entire nation to achieve a high turnout rate in order to give the new government the authority to rule and govern, since ultimately, democracy is a political system where the choice in an election with the most support wins. Thus, with the importance of turnout rates fully recognized, there a lot of people who argue that there is a participation crisis, where people aren’t participating enough politically, where issues range from low election turnout rates to lower party memberships. However, there are also people who argue that participation crisis in UK does not exist, especially in recent years where turnout rates have been increasing.

People who agree on the existence of a participation crisis realize that the amount of participation in trade unions have dramatically dropped compared to the 1950s and 60s where political participation was thriving in post war periods. This is shown through the drop of trade union membership in the UK from 12 to 6.5 million compared with the 1970 figures, showing that there is a drop of political participation in workers. The reason for that is because UK has experienced deindustrialisation, especially under the govern of Margaret Thatcher. The encouragement of globalization meant that workers have less time spending together, and especially with the improvement of technology and electronic appliances, unions will be harder to work since they require the physical presence of a group of people. Furthermore, major problems proposed by these unions, such as the demand of minimum wage and workplace discrimination, have all been mostly solved, leaving less, minor problems for the unions to solve. Hence, arguing that UK is experiencing a participation crisis.

Although trade unions have experienced a decrease in membership number, there are, in fact, an experienced increase in the amount of pressure group memberships. This is evident through the Royal Society of the Protection of Birds, where the amount of its membership is equivalent to double the amount of party membership of the Liberal Democrats, Labour and Conservative parties put together. The increase of pressure groups and their memberships show that the decrease of participation in trade unions does not fully represent the full picture. Furthermore, pressure groups are places where a specific range of ideas are discussed, attracting more politically aware citizens to debate and discuss about issues. These pressure groups also have the capability to organize protests, marches, and certainly have the influence to create petitions. Moreover, governments are more likely to respond to pressure groups, not only because they are groups and have higher importance than one single individual, but also because they have a large human labour force to ask for signatures and advertise. Henceforth, it can be concluded that the the decrease in trade union memberships do not accurately report UK’s participation rate; whereas, the rising participation in pressure groups suggest that UK is improving, especially from the ages where technology wasn’t as commonly used and where information was not shared so conveniently.

On the other hand, people who admit that UK’s participation crisis is present argue that party memberships are low. In the post war years of the 1950s, the Conservative memberships experienced a huge increase to 3 million memberships nationwide. Using this figure and comparing it to modern day memberships, no doubt that there is a huge gap, showing that modern day citizens do not care about politics as the older generations. Moreover, with the presence of apathy and hapathy in modern societies, it can be argued that people are just politically unaware or are just satisfied with their current state and are willing to accept the status quo. Thus, showing that UK has a participation crisis in their eyes.

On the contrary, people who disagree with the fact that Uk is experiencing a participation crisis argue that it is impossible to compare modern day party membership rates to old ones. The reason for that is because of the post- war factor. Citizens in the UK would have been receiving a lot of information from the media, details analyzing the political situation of the war, engaging the entire nation politically and increasing their awareness and interest towards politics. Thus, explaining why political membership rocketed during the 50s. Another reason for that is because of the baby boom, where a lot of people were born since there was a huge demand in human labour to rebuild the country; thus, people were encouraged to give birth. Furthermore, it can also be argued that participation is rising, when we compare modern day figures to figures in the 90s. In the past few years, Labour’s party membership rose to 500,000 members, the highest figure in 30 years. This shows a huge improvement in participation. Therefore, UK does not have a major participation crisis, mainly because memberships are increasing, when compared to recent years, but not to the post war years where many social factors influenced political participation.

Apart from that, it has been noticed that there has been low turnout rate in elections, causing a participation crisis and leading to a weak mandate. The quintessential example of a low turnout rate is the Police and Crime Commissioner Elections in 2012, where the turnout rate was only 15%. People didn’t turn up for elections despite the chance to elect commissioners, not only showing that citizens weren’t interested in politics, also showing that they are not politically aware or engaged in current affairs. People who agree with the presence of a participation crisis also compare Mayor and Police and Crime Commissioner Elections, where there is generally a low turnout rate, to the General Elections in the 1950s, where it was the norm to have 75-85% of turnout rate in General Elections. Therefore, there is a participation crisis through statistical comparison.

Whilst people conclude that there is a participation crisis through observing the low turnout rates of small elections, such as Mayor elections, there are actually huge turnout rates in recent referendums. For example, the Scottish Independence Referendum in 2014 recorded a 84.6% turnout rate, which was the highest in UK’s history, and also the most recent national referendum on whether UK should leave the EU, where there was a 72% turnout rate. Thus, this shows that when an election or a referendum is about something with significant importance, UK citizens will turn up and vote. Especially through recent figures, it can be easily concluded that the participation crisis is nonexistent, where political participation is rising and improving year by year.

As a result, UK is not experiencing a participation crisis, and even though the entire population isn’t voting, it does not necessarily mean that there is a participation crisis. Although political participation may not be as high as the post-war years, it can not be denied that participation rates have constantly been improving in recent years, especially through the evidence of latest figures, such as the 84.6% turnout rate of the Scottish Independence Referendum and the colossal amount of memberships in the Royal Society of the Protection of Birds. In consequence, no, there isn’t a participation crisis in the UK, and it would be ignorant to compare modern participation rates to the 1950s. UK’s political system is improving rapidly, and no doubt participation rates will set higher records in the future years.