In 2004, the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust established an independent inquiry to investigate how to improve democratic participation in Britain. Yesterday, it reported back [PDF], laying out a blueprint for sweeping changes to Britain's constitutional system to strengthen democracy at every level.
The problem with Britain's democracy is not that people have given up on politics (a favourite claim among politicians, but one belied by increased public involvement in every political organisation other than formal political parties). It's that they've given up on politicians, and on a political system where their voices are not heard and their votes do not seem to make a difference. On the latter point, most of the UK's single-member constituencies are safe seats for one party or another, meaning that their constituents can be safely ignored. Only voters in marginal seats seem to count. Meanwhile, as ministers and party spokespeople are usually carpetbagged into safe seats, the public has no effective way of holding them to account. And on the former, the government acts as if responding to strongly expressed public opinion - for example, the massive protests against British involvement in Iraq - is akin to giving in to terrorism. And then they wonder why people refuse to endorse them with their vote...
If Britain's democracy is to improve, this has to change. And the first and most obvious step is ditching the UK's archaic "first past the post" (simple plurality) voting system and replacing it with one which ensures that every vote counts equally, and where politicians can properly be held to account. The report doesn't specify a solid preference here, though it does seem sympathetic to STV. Personally, I prefer the greater proportionality of pre or hybrid PR systems such as MMP - but given the woeful state of the UK's electoral system, pretty much anything would be an improvement.
The other "headline" recommendation is lowering the voting and candidacy age to 16. The aim of this is to get more young people involved, but I think the better argument is that these people's interests (and they do have them) are not currently properly represented, which goes against the general principle in democratic systems of trying to cast the net as wide as possible. The inevitable arguments will be made that sixteen year olds lack sufficient judgement to vote, or will vote according to "fashion" (as if older people don't) - but the same arguments were made a hundred years ago against women voting, and earlier than that against the poor. Meanwhile, they are considered old enough to go to jail, which is a fairly strong argument in favour. After all, if they're subject to criminal law, shouldn't they have some say in what that law should be?
In addition, the report recommends capping political donations, notifying the public of Minister's meetings with lobbyists and industry groups, electing most (but not all?) of the House of Lords, and generally weakening the executive while strengthening Parliament and devolving power to local authorities. It's an excellent recipe for democratic reform in the UK - and one that I expect will be never be implemented, at least while Tony Blair (with his authoritarian and centralising tendencies) is still Prime Minister. But that will eventually change, and then hopefully we'll see some real democratic reform in the UK.