Democracy - sentence stems

The strongest case for direct democracy is that the 2014 Scottish IndyRef (84.6% turnout) and 2016 EU vote (72%) drew higher participation than any general election in the same period.

However, the 2016 result showed that direct democracy reduces complex questions to binary outcomes and can lock future Parliaments into a course voters did not fully consent to.

Participation has changed form - 38 Degrees memberships, e-petitions exceeding one million signatures, and pressure-group memberships dwarfing party membership - rather than disappeared.

But the formal democratic channels matter more for legitimacy - and 60% turnout in 2024, the lowest since 2001, signals a serious problem in those channels.

Votes at 16 already operates in Scotland (2016+) and Wales (2021+) - so the burden of proof is on the side that wants to keep 18, not on the side that wants to lower it.

However, lowering the voting age does not address the deeper participation problem - the issue is not who can vote but whether voting feels like it matters.

The 2020 Climate Assembly showed that 108 citizens given proper time (60 hours) and expert support can deliver policy recommendations Parliament can act on.

But citizens' assemblies remain advisory; without a binding mechanism they risk becoming a polite consultation that the executive can sidestep when the politics shift.

The 2024 result - Labour 411 seats on 33.7% of the vote - shows majoritarian distortion at its most extreme in modern UK history.

However, the majoritarian system delivered the strong Labour majority that voters appeared to want after years of Conservative chaos - the alternative is unstable coalitions.

The 800-plus unelected House of Lords is the single most visible piece of democratic deficit - reform has been promised since 1911 and only partly delivered.

But Lords reform never tops voter priority lists - which suggests the deficit is theoretical for most citizens, even if real in democratic theory.